Artist: Crystal DeSpain
Title: Octavia's Revenge
Medium: Oil on linen
Size: 13" x 24"
Price: $2,500.00
Artist Statement:
Our collective fascination often lifts certain historical figures out of the factual grounding of their lived experience and into the starscapes of mythology.
Cleopatra is one such star. She appears in one of my favorite paintings by John William Waterhouse—depicted as a brooding beauty surrounded by gold and animal skins. She exudes power and dominion, yet she reclines into what I imagine to be her prized soft pink pillow.
That silly, sumptuous pillow became the inspiration for my piece.
Octavia—my own brooding beauty—was the wife of Marc Antony. He left her for Cleopatra. In the end, Marc and Cleo died with dramatic flair, leaving Octavia to raise their children.
Octavia didn’t get the man, but she survived. And in my imagination, she acquired Cleopatra’s beloved pillow—a small, satisfying measure of revenge.