Pure Evel Knievel

183.5 x 138 cm

Ink on Canvas 

Produced in 2005

Comes in a Black frame.

An update of Felicien Rops' engraving for the frontispiece of Les Épaves, a collection of incidental verse by Baudelaire which would include the six censored poems from the 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Les Épaves was finally published in 1866 with the Rops frontispiece illustrating the complex iconographic programme elaborated by Baudelaire. It depicts a skeleton, symbolising the tree of good and evil, in whose feet grow flowers representing the seven deadly sins. Angels and cherubs are flying high above around a medallion of the poet carried away by a chimera.

 In the Pure Evil version the cherubs are playing with drum machines and iPods, the skeleton is Evel Knievel on a Harley Davidson and the chimera has been changed to an American Eagle fighting a Serpent. The scene is an allegory about the end of man. Nature is growing back through the remains of man, slowly disintegrating it and returning the planet to its natural state of peace without man made environmental destruction. I have no idea what the cherubs mean, they're just fat flying babies .