‘As the dust settles on the revolutionary years the demonic shape of war will be revealed. Disillusionment. Uncertainty. My subject summons strength and courage, bracing herself for a turbulent future.’

 

 

This portrait was created in response to the WB Yeats poem 1919 for an exhibition of 130  invited artists by Hamilton Gallery Sligo.

 

My response was inspired largely by the final verse of the poem:

 

VI.
Violence upon the roads:  violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.