"The Reaper of Souls" by Monique Briarwood Brown

This artwork is another I did for my year 12 finals.. "The Reaper of Souls" is an artwork based on the ideas of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, with this one centred around Death or The Reaper mounted upon the war horse. I have altered Death to be a woman in this artwork, to symbolize it's allure and seductivness to humans. Her almost barbie doll resemblence makes her look innocent, but beware! Everything about this artwork is not what it seems at first glance. Because of all the detail, it takes your eyes a while to pick out all of the omonous symbols like death's head hawkmoths hidden and camoflagued in Death's dress, the white death lily she holds promisingly to her lips, her nails that are more like talons, the lion that lies dying at her feet...

The lion symbolizes humanity, and how we are dunuded when faced with death. For all our intelligences, power and technology, death is still an aspect we have no/very little control over. The Lion lays on the silken folds of Death's butterfly-inspired dress, positioned in a sign of submission, the pain and agony of his wound showing as the fear in his expression. Deaths-head hawkmoths flutter ominously around the lion, camouflaged into the colours of the dress. The lion is based on/inspired by the Dying Lion Statue of Lucerne which I saw recently on a trip to Europe. In this artwork I have recreated him in the image of a nemean lion, with different meanings. The overall artwork took well over 80 hours to complete, the lion alone taking  up 15 of them. Created mainly with inks and watercolours in 2011 at age 17. This artwork was for one of  my year 12 final artpieces...oh and by the way, my art teacher gave me a "C" for this one ;)

Aprox. 32" (height from top of black border to tip of lion's paw) by 23.5" (wide)