Recent developments in e.g. the Middle East show, once again, that civilisation is nothing but a thin chrome layer that over time will peel and flake. One of our Zartians, Ludy, made a series of literary paintings based on old stories that suddenly seem very contemporary.  Her paintings remind us that cruelties and atrocities are not a new invention. “The Green Ionian islands on the West Coast of Greece are the place where I travel around a lot”, she writes us. Here she picked up many stories and recycled them into paintings. Ludy: “Some of these stories, describe such cruel behaviour that I felt a need to tell what happened in a series paintings”.

Portrait Inside, see below, is about an aristocrat’s daughter, who falls in love with a poor village boy. This enrages her family and especially her father who locks her up in a convent. But her lover does not give up and brings her a serenade. When the father hears about this he loses it completely and comes to a most horrific solution: he beheads the lover. Then keeps the poor girl locked up in the attic with the severed head of the man she hoped to marry. Short fuses they had”, Ludy tells. And if no one saved the girl, she must still be locked up somewhere.

Zart does not have the complete collection of Ludy’s work but showcases 4 pieces. Check her artist page to see more.

Ludy’s page >