I first started to use and experiment with references to Ancient Egyptian culture in my degree show at Gray's School of Art in 1994. I have continued with this theme in more recent work which includes a painting of Tutankhamun's face mask. It is my hope to be able to combine this with areas of high detail, blurred sections, texture, and areas of ethnic patterns.
I soon discovered as I painted the different sections of the face mask that the features quickly morphed into what I consider to be a female appearance. Without the headdress the image definitely looks female. Once I paint the actual head dress I might decide to change the overall image to look more feminine.
In a documentary that I had seen it was suggested that Tutankhamun's facemask is female, possibly Nefertiti or her eldest daughter and Tutankhamun's-wife Ankhesenamun.
I changed her appearance slightly by altering the shape of the nose and gave her an Egyptian headress (Nemes) as a reference to my time living in Cairo and my general interest in Ancient Egypt.
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Close up of a female character from Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes", which I used as inspiration for my image.
I was struck by how adding the headdress immediately gave this character a male appearance.
© 2017 Nicola Galloway
All rights reserved
© 2017 Nicola Galloway
All rights reserved
Unit 7A
Albion Business Centre
78 Albion Road,
Edinburgh EH7 5QZ