ELVIRA VAN BOCHOVE Transmitting through art
The Little Mermaid and her choices...
The classic fairytale by Hans Christiaan Andersen is the guiding principle for a series of paintings I am working on. The tragedy of her being a creature without much power to choose the life that she desires gives her little self-love. Using works from art history, I hilight emancipatory issues that are in the story.
She traded her voice for a pair of legs 2019
acrylics on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
The painting shows the Little Mermaid after her visit to the Sea Witch. She is left in a lonely environment. The light emphasizes her new legs, where there used to be a fish tail. The road to a possible life with the Prince. For this she paid with her voice, an essential part of the being of a mermaid. She will never again be able to tell her Prince and the world who she is …
“She traded her voice for a pair of legs” is after Rembrandt’s “The Bather”.
