Commission for Opera North’s production of Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s castle in 2005

Work was featured in the production catalogue and exhibited as large printed and hung banners in Leeds city Hall during the production’s premier and run.

This work extends investigations initiated in earlier work featured in Magic Murder & the Weather with the Bluebeard story. In particular, the idea of Bluebeard as the malignant  failed magician, or like Satan, failed angel; a predator leitmotif against which the female protagonist of the story must battle. This oppressor to awareness and growth is representative of an internal self-limiting or living without experiencing. Using the key to open the door to the room is the one thing which is forbidden, but is the one thing necessary for full ‘consciousness’. The key will not stop weeping blood till acknowledgement of horrors contained within the ‘bloody chamber’ has occurred.

View images from the series