This painting depicts the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel. The fortress itself is in the distance, near the centre of the work. Masada was the sight of the last stand of the Jewish Zealots known as the sicarii against the Roman 10th legion under the command of Lucius Flavius Silva. The roughly 960 Jews were all found dead, except for two women and three children, the morning after the Romans assaulted the walls of the fortress with a large battering ram affixed to an enormous tower. They had supposedly all committed suicide. The flaming stones and catapult stones in the foreground, as well as the scorpion bolts, represent the assault on the fortress by the Roman legion.
The rectangular structure/impression on the bottom left is of one of the many Roman military camps that were constructed around Masada.
This work was exhibited in the 2022 John Leslie Art Prize.
The canvas was custom-made and the wooden stretcher is strong at 33mm deep, also featuring a cross-bar on the back.
Ready to hang with strong wire/d-rings on the back.
Masada
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Artwork Details
Medium | Oil, Canvas, Ready to hang |
Dimensions | 135cm (W) x 90cm (H) x 3.3cm (D) |
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Artwork Description
Artist Bio
Jeremy Elkington has been painting since 1995 and in 2002 achieved his Masters of Visual Arts (By Research) at Monash University. Since 1997 Jeremy has been exhibiting his work in group and solo exhibitions and regularly submitting his work in an array of art prizes across Australia. In 2009 he won 'Best Australian Landscape' at the Herald Sun Rotary Club of Camberwell Art Show and in both 2018 and 2022 was a semi-finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize. At the core of much of Jeremy's artwork (especially in larger paintings) are desert landscapes, the ancient world (particularly Ancient Rome), ornament and abstraction. From 1997 to 2011 Arabic ornament and architectural elements (as well as the desert landscape) had been explored. Desert landscapes remain but Arabic art had been superseded by the armour, weaponry, ornament, architectural elements and sculpture of Ancient Rome. Within such works Jeremy aims to evoke a sense of the hidden narrative, the epic, the surreal, the ornamental, the archaic as well as beauty. Since 2013 Jeremy has also explored abstraction, abstract-expressionism, silhouettes, the Gothic, portraiture (particularly influenced by the work of Francis Bacon) space and depictions of film scenes. Jeremy has also been producing drawings whose range of subject matter reflects that within his paintings but, at times, has explored pattern and ornament to an intense degree.
Jeremy has sold artwork across Australia, New Zealand and USA.