Gouche and Gold Leaf
38” x 16” including frame
This work reimagines the 15th-century "Mermaid Chair" from St Senara’s Church in Zennor, Cornwall. Rendered in a medieval Venetian style with gold and silver gilding, the piece explores a dual narrative: the Christian warning against vanity and the Alchemical allegory of the "Great Work."
Within a gilded Gothic arch and a red and gold foliate border, the Mermaid sits as a figure of dual nature. To the Church, she is a siren of temptation, her gilded hair and mirror symbolising the "sins of the flesh." An anchor of faith descends from the shore, a vain attempt by the congregation to tether the soul of the young singer, Mathey Trewhella, to the terrestrial world.
However, through the lens of Alchemy, the scene depicts a Chymical Wedding. Mathey and the Mermaid undergo Solutio, the dissolving of the ego into the universal subconscious. Wrapped around the anchor, the Golden Fish represents the divine spirit discovered in the depths of matter. In this "Athanor" (alchemical furnace) of Zennor, Mathey achieves a "Crowned" state of spiritual perfection, transcending the mundane to join the primordial tides.
Gouche and Gold Leaf
38” x 16” including frame
This work reimagines the 15th-century "Mermaid Chair" from St Senara’s Church in Zennor, Cornwall. Rendered in a medieval Venetian style with gold and silver gilding, the piece explores a dual narrative: the Christian warning against vanity and the Alchemical allegory of the "Great Work."
Within a gilded Gothic arch and a red and gold foliate border, the Mermaid sits as a figure of dual nature. To the Church, she is a siren of temptation, her gilded hair and mirror symbolising the "sins of the flesh." An anchor of faith descends from the shore, a vain attempt by the congregation to tether the soul of the young singer, Mathey Trewhella, to the terrestrial world.
However, through the lens of Alchemy, the scene depicts a Chymical Wedding. Mathey and the Mermaid undergo Solutio, the dissolving of the ego into the universal subconscious. Wrapped around the anchor, the Golden Fish represents the divine spirit discovered in the depths of matter. In this "Athanor" (alchemical furnace) of Zennor, Mathey achieves a "Crowned" state of spiritual perfection, transcending the mundane to join the primordial tides.
