Saudi Princess

This small painting is based on an image I found about a Saudi princess ho was beheaded for infidelity. It was 1980 and it was made into a TV mini series of course- this image is from the TV show. I have pushed the action to the left side and concentrated more on the shadows of the viewers and have made the two guards who stand above headless, so there is this kind of play between headless bodies, and body-less heads in the foreground.  Really the figure of the princess, the protagonist, is the only one featured as a whole person.  This series is about the year 1980, even as a young child I was very taken by world events which I watched obsessively through the family Admiral black and white television.

These events, which had ramifications well passed 1980 led me to call this series, 1980: the first year of the new millennium for this reason. The colours are selected from the many styles and eras of my childhood home.