Mark Sheeky

"Nine Ladies Weeping At The Death Of A Phoenix"

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This is an accurate depiction of The Nine Ladies, an ancient stone circle in Derbyshire which was once threatened with destruction by modern developers. The picture depicts the sí, the Celtic underworld, a mirror-reflection of universe suffused with an unearthly violet light. The stones are now mourners, living rock yet frozen, dead, around the corpse of a golden bird. Yet, is this a final death? Like the Phoenix, like the ring of stone itself, all time is cyclic here. The mood is sad as the ladies, and the strange, unearthly trees, mourn the passing of ancient Britain; but what is a millennium to such ancient stones? In the sky, the actual world and the actual stones live on, waiting. An with much of my work, this idea was developed almost completely unconsciously, and so is open to interpretation. When I saw the ragged stones, I thought of each one as a lost, old figure; an ancient soul trapped in the modern world. This was the seed of this painting.

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