Mythological References in Stonehenge III Painting Titles
40" x 60" (43" x 63" framed) three paintings
Stonehenge Series III, Nut (Egyptian) 40 x 60 inches, Oil on Panel, 2014
Nut (Nuit, Nwt) was the personification of the sky and the heavens. She was the daughter Shu and Tefnut and the granddaughter of the creator god (Atum or Ra). Her husband/brother was Geb the earth god. However, she could also be said to be the mother of Ra. In one myth Nut gives birth to the Sun-god daily and he passes over her body during the day before being swallowed at night only to be reborn the next morning. According to another myth Ra used the Atet (or Matet) boat to travel across her body until noon and then used the Sektet boat until sunset.
She was thought to be the mother of five children on the five extra days of the Egyptian calendar known as the "epagomenal days of the year". Apparently, Ra became annoyed because Geb and Nut were locked in a perpetual embrace so he asked Shu to sperarate them. He also decreed that Nut should not bear children on any day in the calendar, but Thoth won the five "epagomenal" days days from the moon and Nut had five children: Osiris who was born on the first day, Horus the Elder on the second, Set on the third, Isis on the fourth, and Nephthys the last born on the fifth day. These days were a time of celebration all over Egypt.
60" x 40" (63" x 43" framed ) five paintings
Stonehenge Series III, Tamapo'uli'alamafoa (Tongan) 60 x 40 inches, Oil on Panel, 2014
In the Polynesian mythology of the Tongan island of Ata, the god Tamapoulialamafoa is the king of the heavens. He is the one who ordered (through his servants all called Tangaloa (Tangaloa Eiki, Tangaloa Tufunga, and Tangaloa Atulongolongo)) the sub-god Laufakanaa to become ruler of that island.
36" x 48” (39" x 51") two paintings
Stonehenge Series III, Ushas (Hindu) 36 x 48 inches, Oil on Panel, 2014
Ushas (Sanskrit for "dawn") is a Vedic deity, and consequently a Hindu deity as well. Ushas is an exalted goddess in the Rig Veda but less prominent in post-Rgvedic texts. She is often spoken of in the plural, "the Dawns." She is portrayed as warding off evil spirits of the night, and as a beautifully adorned young woman riding in a golden chariot on her path across the sky. Due to her color she is often identified with the reddish cows, and both are released by Indra from the Vala cave at the beginning of time.
In one recent Hindu interpretation, Sri Aurobindo in his Secret of the Veda, described Ushas as "the medium of the awakening, the activity and the growth of the other gods; she is the first condition of the Vedic realisation. By her increasing illumination the whole nature of man is clarified; through her [mankind] arrives at the Truth, through her he enjoys [Truth's] beatitude."
Stonehenge Series III, Te Ao (Maori) 36 x 48 inches, Oil on Panel, 2014
As the sun rises each morning and sets each evening, the world follows a daily cycle of light (Te Ao) and darkness (Te Po). Maori creation stories emphasise this movement from nothingness and darkness to the world of light – Te Ao Marama. It is said that the world itself is created each morning with the rise of the sun.
