The Paranoid Schizophrenia Of Richard Dadd

This ambitious work was created in eight intense weeks along with a custom display cabinet in the summer of 2012. It depicts Richard Dadd, a Victorian painter of fairy pictures who spent much of his life incarcerated in an asylum due to his insanity, following his murder of his father.

This painting pays homage to his most famous work, The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke.

The right half of the painting shows heaven and the left half hell. A knife is raised in the centre but the female target is obscure, and has a bird's head. Curious blue skinned creatures peer from hidden corners. An elephant appears to hold the blade.

In the middle, beneath a tree we see Mr. Dadd. The painting contains lots of elements, seen and unseen.

See my YouTube channel for "Fear of the Thing Itself", a song written in 2012 that was also inspired by The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke, as much a tribute to the Queen song as to the artist himself.