Narcissus & Echo by the Turlough

Beyond the critic. Thank you Jack.

Title: Narcissus & Echo by the Turlough
Subtitle: Beyond the critic. Thank you Jack.

original approx. 20" x 15"/ 52cm x 38cm
acylics on wood panel
wood frame
courtesy of Massimo Tumi
2016

Works >> Narcissus & Echo By The Turlough

Narcissus & Echo by the Turlough is my abstract expressionist interpretation of the classical Roman myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses (book III) from the Augustan age. The mythical scene has been interpreted by many artists over the centuries and is typified by the Narcissus male figure looking at his reflection in a lake and to the side or in the back ground there is the female figure of Echo who looks on, caught under a curse that renders her with no voice of her own.

The figures are deliberately set in the west of Ireland by a turlough, with the male figure standing upright on what looks like a stone island surrounded by the water. The woman is laying by the side of the lake and appears to blend into the water's edge and the fields behind her as if she were in full receiving of the natural landscape, part representative of Mother Nature and part representative of the discarded broken-hearted lover.

Turloughs are "disappearing" lakes, a common natural phenomona across the landscape in Ireland. This is a direct and conscious nod to William Butler Yeat and more so my admirmation for his father one of Ireland's greatest and earliest abstract expressionists Jack Butler Yeats. (Thank you Jack)