Acrylic Paint, Water Color Paint, and Pen
5" x 5"
2017

This is inspired by Shakespeare's Henry V: Act 5, Scene 2, "A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes". Each dot on the heart was hand done individually with a pen. In this piece, I wanted to capture King Henry V's fraught relationship with Katherine of France, so I used the heart as a visual representation. On the outside, it's glowing, vibrant, and strong. But on the inside, it's fragmented and spotty. Indeed, speciously, Henry's motivations for marrying Katherine are noble, and his words used to court her are beautiful (if convoluted), but when examined closely, the verbiage he uses to talk about her is filled with violent sexual innuendos, "And you may, some of you, thank/ love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair/French city for one fair French maid that stands in/my way"(V.ii.328-330); he compares her to France, a city not yet laid under siege, in reference to her maidenhood.