RED BED, 2014

If beds could speak. Beds have long been an important theme in western art history and understandably so. They have often been portrayed in red – a colour with numerous symbolic interpretations depending on historical period, culture etc. Red has been associated with cheerfulness as well as with high status in the Renaissance because of the expense of the pigment. Hence its use in images of the Virgin’s bed, Mary Magdalen’s and other significant figures. However, as an assertive colour, passion, blood, danger etc. all lurk in this pigment too.