the three graces
40 X 40
Acrylic on canvas
2025
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The intention of the work is to embody the feminist and witch-like drive to assert one's place, voice, ideas, and identity. The work The Three Graces was primarily created by male artists, such as Raphael and Botticelli, during the Renaissance, when the subject depicts three women. This paradox perfectly illustrates the role of women at the time, who were (and still are today) often seen as objects of male seduction and fantasy.
Indeed, Raphael chose to represent, in nudity, the goddess Aglaia, embodying radiance, Euphrosyne symbolizing joy, and Thalia, evoking abundance. The depictions of the three nude goddesses represent typical qualities of women as objects, without character or identity of their own. "In Greco-Roman mythology, the three Graces are daughters of Jupiter embodying beauty, seduction, and fertility." (Musée Condé, 2020).
In my creation, I wanted to personify the codes of the iconic work The Three Graces by highlighting feminine power through the lunar goddesses, who embody female divinity: Selene, Artemis, and Hecate. These three witches are very powerful. Each represents a force in a different domain. Artemis is the goddess of hunting and wild nature, representing the crescent moon. Then, Selene, the personification and goddess of the moon in Greek mythology, illustrates the full moon. Finally, Hecate is associated with witchcraft, magic, the moon, gates, and nocturnal creatures such as hellhounds and ghosts. Often depicted holding a torch to remind of her link with the night, in sculpture, she has three faces, symbolizing her role as the goddess of boundaries and guardian of crossroads in darkness. The theme of darkness is ever-present in the work through the landscape and the place illustrated, following the painting #4 Tempus. I want to represent their power as bearers of light in the darkness, which represents taboos and the depths of human existence.
Reproducing this iconic work is a way to honor the soul and vitality of these three goddesses, as well as those of all the witches of the time who transcended patriarchal constraints, often at the cost of their lives. Since the dawn of time, women considered witches have been courageous, independent, intelligent, fearless, curious, iconoclastic, aggressive, and emancipated. They have thus shown a revolutionary spirit. With The Three Graces MMXXV, I aim to subvert the codes and adapt them to my own perception of the world, in order to reclaim the meaning of the word "witch." By representing the three lunar goddesses and witches in the darkness, I illustrate women as masters and protectors of their destiny, as vectors of emancipation. Women are exhausted from being considered the second sex, as Simone de Beauvoir said, which impedes their freedom and power. We have been silenced for too long, it is our time to shine through our essence.
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