As is often the case with my art this painting just “evolved” from a speed painting session. Even though it only took 9 hours I have been working on this for about a week now in my spare time, painting for about an hour at a time. This has allowed me to actually reflect on my painting a lot more and to analyze and prepare my next painting session. The only thing I had in mind when I started painting was this pair of eyes and this particular face of a woman that I just had to get out of my head. The image then naturally moved into an image of an angel and when I was working with the composition I saw the witch.

Just like my Medusa painting, this painting tells the story of a woman who is wrongfully accused and condemned. I gave the painting the title “Rebirth” as it tells the story of a Witch that is drowned by a mob and is reborn as a crow. The image is essentially about the power struggle between men and women.

Her tattoo is an Ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol which represents “eternal life”. She gains eternal life in the afterlife (or if you will she turns immortal and escapes death as a crow/angel). As a Venus symbol it obviously represents her womanhood. It is no coincidence that the mob consists of men and the wrongfully accused is a woman. The jewelery on her wings are made of silver, which can symbolize a number of different things. As a symbol for “purity” it represents her innocence. Silver is also a “holy” metal and is used to shackle bad spirits.

The cross obviously represents Christianity and the Inquisition. However, what you see in the image is actually the reflection of a cross. In a sense it is an inverted cross, which is often used by satanists. In my painting it symbolizes the darker aspects of Christianity and religion in general.

Quite surprisingly, this painting makes more sense if you look at it upside down…

And even more surprisingly the composition works quite well upside down as well, doesn’t it? The “mob” comes more into focus and it is as if we are under the water looking up and not above the waters surface looking at the reflection of the mob. She is sitting upside down, kinda like how vampires are depicted as sitting upside down in the ceiling like bats. I’m almost tempted to print it and hang it on my wall in such a way that I can spin it around easily and just flip it whenever I feel like. Drive people mad. My signature also kinda says “sɐɯ 5006″ (wonder what that means to a numerologist?). Too bad it’s not the year “999″ or that my name isn’t “Alucard”. :D

You might wonder why the wing is not attached to her back. I see it as if the wing grows out from her hair and she is in the middle of the metamorphosis stage so the wing can be just about anywhere. It’s called artistic freedom. :P