Wicker Man

One of my favorite English films is the odd 60's release, Wicker Man, that became a minor cult classic, and spawned a recent inferior version starring Nicholas Cage. The original had Count Dracula himself, Christopher Lee, and centered on some pagan folk who lived on an island off the coast of Scotland. A young girl went missing and a devout police inspector goes to the island to investigate. That's when the weirdness begins.

For me, the most arresting image of the movie is the final scene of the burning wicker man. That scene stayed with me for years, and re-emerged as I worked on pieces for an exhibition in 2004. The theme of the show was the body as a vessel, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

The original movie played up the conflict between Christianity and paganism, but my interest lay in the transformative power of fire. With that in mind, I painted Wicker Man.