Table Dancer: "Is a collision of references and metaphors extending from Rembrandts painting ‘Lucreatia’ to Picasso’s ‘Three Dancers’. The painting takes as its starting point a broken table which is inhabited by the spirit of a dancer, a dancer who is asked to submit to an audience requiring her sacrifice for their own satisfaction, the giant spurts of water and blood suggest the vulnerability of her body and spiritual integrity. In Rembrandts painting of Lucretia we see the moment after the dagger, with which she kills herself, is withdrawn. It is a moment in which she maintains her integrity and the liberty of the people. Many of my paintings take strong mythic women as their subject including Lucretia, Mary Magdalene and Susanna. Perhaps now more than ever they are symbolic of a liberty from corrupted power and greed. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says in his account of Lucretia’s suicide.

"This dreadful scene struck the Romans who were present with so much horror and compassion that they all cried out with one voice that they would rather die a thousand deaths in defense of their liberty than suffer such outrages to be committed by the tyrants."
Matthew Burrows