In approaching this project, my goal was to create art that focused mainly on aesthetic values as well as an emphasis on the art of storytelling, and to create a piece that reflected the feeling that Grimms fairy tales always elicited in me when I read them as a child.
The piece itself is in the form of a vertical scroll, a style that calls back to more historic storytelling, shown in artworks such as the Bayeux tapestry, Night Attack on Sanjo Palace, as well as hieroglyphs. I wanted to create something that was a challenge, and differed from my normal practices, which were much more limited in size. There is also an element of absurdity, which comes with having a 4 meter long vertical scroll, that stretches the height of my house and has absolutely no practical function.
Fairy Tales often include themes of ridiculousness, anyway - a princess named after a cabbage, foxes that can carry whole humans on their tails. With novelties such as this, I wanted to explore that often morbid mysticism that comes with the Grimms brothers, as well as explore new avenues of their stories - for example, this version of the Golden Bird is told from the point of view of the fox, who plays a pivotal character in the story, and is in my opinion, the most fascinating element.
Making a project such as this has challenged my critical thinking, artistic boundaries and improved my knowledge of the world of storytelling.
