Courtship

Courtship
“‘Day by day the prince became more dear to her, he was fond of her as one can be fond of a good, dear child, but it never occurred to him to make her his queen, and she had to become his wife, otherwise she would never get an immortal soul, but on his wedding morning would become foam on the sea. ‘Aren’t you fonder of me than all the rest!’ the eyes of the little mermaid seemed to say when he took her in his arms and kissed her lovely forehead. ‘Yes, you are dearest of all to me,’ the prince said, ‘for you have the best heart of them all, you are the most devoted to me, and you resemble a young girl I once saw but will surely never find again..”
This is a quote from the original, and very dark tale of The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Anderson, a sad truth that many people find themselves in, loving someone, yet really bing second best to them, this inspired the painting and the title of this piece.
This piece is 20x20cm painted on mounted birch panel, I have worked here are many, many layers of paint and ink and and varnish the texture is tactile, with crackle effects and smooth finishes, you want to run your hands and your eyes over it!
The piece was created as part of the Den Lille Harfrue Collection – the little mermaid. Created in lockdown to express my feelings about the restrictions, being unable to have social contact and also experiencing incredibly vivid and at some times quite scary dreams, a lot based underwater.
Not only did I draw on my own vivid dreams as inspiration for this piece, and this whole collection, I also looked at one of my favourite Fairy Tales as a Child- The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian.