The Highgate Vampire

MARQUISE

As a child of the 70s, I have very fond memories of sitting on the floor in front of our little colour TV, and watching and adoring Lynda Carter bounce around, kicking ass and fighting crime. I’ve always loved Wonder Woman, and I'm fascinated by the myriad ways she’s been imagined and re-imagined over the years. For mine I focused on her dualism – the goddess beauty vs warrior strength, combined with the colour and curves of my childhood. In terms of the art, I thought it would be fun to allude to classicism for the subjects association with Greek mythology and form, and balletic contrapposto as a homage to Lynda's classic spin. Prints available via my website.

I always loved the wide-eyed screaming horror of Elsa’s original Bride, but for mine I thought it would be fun if she was instead just very, very, displeased. As soon as her motor-functions kick in, it’s gonna kick off, and Doctors Frank’ and Pretorius are gonna take a very short walk off that very high tower. On the set of the original movie, attached to one of the columns, you can see a big wheel that’s used to crank open the skylight. I thought it might be interesting to incorporate this, symbolically, as a sort of halo, like the kind of thing you see in stained glass windows and old religious art, and to give the scene an additional sixth day creation kinda vibe. Also, whilst working on this, every time I thought of the name “Pretorius”, I would involuntarily sing it in my head to the tune of, “No, No, Notorious”