Her Attendants

The central female figure in this work is modeled after a Henry Fuseli’s sketch illustration ‘Woman at a dressing table’ (c.1815), with a titillating focal point. Here her attendants are from Van Dyck’s ‘Martyrdom of St Sebastian,’ (c.1620), and an angelic winged figure from Peter Paul Rubens, (c.1608), and ‘a naked ithyphallic ghost’ after another Fuseli drawing of the same name (c.1814). These translucent apparitions represent an absurd fantasy of distinct stereotypically masculine identities, such as virility heroism, and masochism.