Fantasy

Series: Her Own Crown

My canvases are about pride. Many of the women literally wear a crown or headdress. It is also the idea behind a portrait: she hands herself a crown. Why is a woman painted? There are two answers, and they are as old as the portrait itself.

The first comes from her: out of pride. She has herself painted to recognise herself, who she is, what she wore and what she came through. The portrait then becomes a mirror that confirms and preserves her strength, even as time changes her.

The second comes from the artist: out of fascination. Some women are so famous or so notorious that they have become their own myth: queen, rebel, prophetess, figure of dread. Then the artist paints her not because she asks, but because he cannot let her go. He looks for the face behind the legend, wants to understand that strength and to make lasting what would otherwise vanish into stories, rumours and oblivion. Admired or feared, such women deserve a face that remains. The canvas outlives the rumours.

Nico Seymus paints women who stand tall. Some wear a crown of gold, steel or paint, others a mask, a veil or zebra stripes that always seemed to be there. They come from a fantasy world, from a future full of circuitry or from a dream that refuses to keep to one genre. Their titles are roles they have claimed for themselves: Sovereign, Herald, Nomad, Mother of Storms.

The work moves freely between fantasy, science fiction, surrealism and abstraction. Next to meticulously built-up faces are fields where the paint breaks loose, with angular brushstrokes, drips and shards of gold. The faces stay calm, the canvas may churn. That is what strength looks like in this series: not loud, but certain.

What they wear cannot be named in one word. Is it a mask, a helmet, a crown or something growing out of the face itself? Armour or skin? Seymus paints in the traditional way and deliberately keeps the process out of sight. The women do not explain themselves, and neither does the painter. The mystery is not a shortcoming but the very core. Whoever stands before such a canvas is not looking at someone else. She is looking at who she herself could be. And she looks back.