The Icarus Stain is the final painting in a series of works spanning almost two decades. The theme of this work has been a dialogue between the struggle to find meaning as a human and as an artist, in a world where belief is unstable and meaning is mercurial. This struggle is crystallised in acts comprising a series of almost mystical self-portraits with the Sun as its central theme.
The project has had various incarnations: The Victory Series (2005), The Shield of Achilles (2008), and Wrestling With Angels (2016). Wrestling With Angels was shown in The Gemaldegalerie Berlin alongside the Rembrandt’s painting of Jacob and the Angel that was the initial spark for the artist’s imagination. A version of the Victory Series was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre Paris earlier this year where it forms part of the permanent collection along with a painting from the Shield of Achilles series.
