Homer’s Odyssey describes, among many other adventures, the plight of Odysseus’s men on the Island of the Lotus-eaters, on their return voyage to Ithaca from Troy. Eating the native lotus and inadvertently succumbing to its narcotic properties, the sea-faring soldiers become waylaid, forgetful, and immobilized. Over a thousand years later, in 1832, this same legend was retold by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, The Lotos-Eaters. Tennyson’s visual description of the isle and its inhabitants, in particular, informed these collaged drawings of the same subject. The pieces are about a generalized complacency, a nostalgic, weary disengagement; a distracted ‘giving up’ on cultural, political and even personal levels- issues as relevant today as they were in ancient Greece or England in the 'Age of Enlightenment.'
Island of the Lotus-Eaters: Perpetual Afternoon II, Colored pencil and ink on vellum and paper, approx. 8" x 10," 2006.
Island of the Lotus-Eaters: The Saint Comes at Dusk II, Colored pencil and ink on vellum and paper, approx. 8" x 10," 2006.
The Stoicist (Odysseus), staples and pencil on paper and archival tape, approx. 12" x 8," 2006.
The Stoicist (Odysseus)- Reverse Side, staples and pencil on paper and archival tape, approx. 12" x 8," 2006.
Lotus Eaters