Ahab

60 x 60 cm
acrylic on canvas
 
Ahab: The artwork is an enlarged small section of my painting “Simply Too Much Packaging” which I have worked up into a painting in its own right. A narrative was revealed within the greater whole, a short story within a bigger book of stories. The small detail seemed to stand out I transposed or extrapolated it into a larger image. “Ahab” obviously reminds of the Quaker captain with the white whale fixation as written by Herman Melville in 1851. There has been much analyse of the captain Ahab character in the novel “Moby Dick”. It generally suggests that the captain is obsessed and vengeful. These character traits have been compared to humankind’s futile attempt to conquer and vanquish the natural world, the forces of nature. Facing down in arrogance the natural force symbolised by the white whale. Nature cannot be an evil force. There is no good or bad it is all perfectly balanced already, in its natural state. Only in this religion there is this misplaced belief of righteousness.