THE WILD HUNT

October 2018-Present

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The wild hunt is a widespread and highly varying tale. This iteration of the hunt examines the conflation of time, place, and even beings that occurs in the retelling of this tale.

As with most popular tales, there can be an incredible amount of  diversity in each retelling. From a ghostly rider who hunts a white stag followed by ghostly companions, to a march of the haunts wearing familiar faces who force any who stumble upon them to join their hunt.

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The leader of the hunt changes between a great deal of deities and figures, especially those that get conflated and could fall under the title of The Horned God. These deities have become conflated more and more over time as neopaganism has become popularized and commonly discussed, especially on social media. They include, but are not limited to, Pan from greco-roman mythology, Odin from Norse mythology, Cerunnos, Herne, and The Green Man, among others. 

Unfortunately, by conflating these deities and ghosts, distinctive purposes behind their existence in their specific pantheons as well as each individual's unique attributes tend to be lost. However, it has resulted in the Wild Hunt becoming a widespread and highly accessible tale. 

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My personal favorite version of the Wild Hunt focuses on Herne as the leader of the hunt. 

The origin of the story of Herne is a bit hard to trace, but it is commonly believed to have been a localized ghost story about a man who ended his own life and was left to wander the forest becoming twisted in time into something more than human, similar in type to modern iterations of the tales of the Wendigo, or even a Will O' the Wisp.

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 The first and central piece, Herne the Huntress, is a 30"h x  48"w acrylic painting. It was the first piece to be started in this series. I wanted to play with the common conflation of deities, and chose an unrelated female goddess to portray as Herne. Artemis was ideal for this purpose, in my mind, because although she does not fall under the title of horned god, she can be associated more closely with many of those that do than other 'horned gods'. Her aptitude for the hunt, association with deer, and wild nature are all qualities that are integral to many retellings of the hunt, though her purity is in direct juxtaposition with the inherent decay of a being like Herne.

My little sister posed for the painting. 

 The color scheme  focuses on dusty rose tones and warm browns and is meant to be a mixture of colors I identify with my sister as well as late fall in the woods of Pennsylvania. 

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This series of paintings is meant to provide snapshots as the ghostly menagerie of the hunt moves through the woods. The bright and discordant colors present at the beginning of the hunt fade into and are juxtaposed with the deep burgundies of the darkness of yule as more sinister creatures trail behind the hunt.

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