Sunday 20 March 2011

Shakespeare

Couple more illustrations for Hullfire magazine. Was asked to create 2 images for the plays Othello and The Winters Tale.
Focusing on the symbolism and use of language in the plays I made these cryptic-ish conceptual images.



Othello - The play takes place in Venice, so ive included St. Marks Campanile, piercing a broken heart. The heart is made up of 2 faces, that of Othello and his lover Desdemona, and hints to both of their tragic ends. The heart can also be seen as a strawberry, which reminds us of the motif on Desdemona's handkerchief given to her by Othello.



The Winters Tale - Centres on the story of a pair Kings, once childhood friends, now jealous and scheming - one king orders the other to be poisoned, prompting him to say the lines "I have drunk and seen the spider". The image focuses on this quote, showing a black widow spider, with the two kings faces looking at each other, creating both the recognisable red shape on the spiders back and the shape of the poisoned cup. The blue in the left eye represents the winter beginnings of the play, while the green eye represents both the jealousy, and the plays shift to summer.