really looking forward to allison’s lecture at the Laguna Art Museum next thursday, june 7th 7pm.
mermaid with legs #2, 2012
oil on linen
see images from her show currently up at mark moore gallery in LA:
Procompsognathid height distribution, normal curve. Culled from Jurassic Park. I can’t read this book fast enough. It’s stupid, but I get a chill from this chart every time I look at it.
Old Babylonian, approximately 1800-1750 BC From southern Iraq.
The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war, or Ishtar’s sister and rival, the goddess Ereshkigal who ruled over the Underworld, or the demoness Lilitu, known in the Bible as Lilith.
The same goddess appears on small, crude, mould-made plaques from Babylonia from about 1850 to 1750 BC. Thermoluminescence tests confirm that the ‘Queen of the Night’ relief was made between 1765 and 45 BC.
This large plaque is made of baked straw-tempered clay, modelled in high relief. The figure of the curvaceous naked woman was originally painted red. She wears the horned headdress characteristic of a Mesopotamian deity and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Her long multi-coloured wings hang downwards, indicating that she is a goddess of the Underworld. Her legs end in the talons of a bird of prey, similar to those of the two owls that flank her. The background was originally painted black, suggesting that she was associated with the night. She stands on the backs of two lions, and a scale pattern indicates mountains.
