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Hylas and Nymphes [Dimensions: 48" x 72" or your actual size] · Carbon pencil, blackening watercolours, and inks on paper mounted to canvas · [2019–2025]
Hylas reaches toward the surface of the water , his hand dissolving into the grasp of the nymph who readys drag him down—beauty and desire turning lethal in her embrace. The nymphs, luminous yet predatory, coil around him like serpents, their faces both tender and inexorable. Hercules stands next to him but lost unable to help and also soon in the same danger.
The blackening water swallows light, layers building like the weight of longing and inevitable loss. Yet in the depths, a faint glow persists—the moment before surrender, the question of whether the pull is destruction or transformation, pain or ecstatic release.
A reimagining of classical myth through the lens of vulnerability, desire's double edge, and the rebirth that might await beneath the surface—dark yet eternally optimistic in its ambiguous surrender.
Inquiries welcome for acquisition, studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com