Elise Estreich
St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Primary School, Bowral
The Puppeteer’s Strings
‘The Flight to Egypt’ Matthew 2:13-15
This passage stood out to me because I wanted to focus on Herod, his perspective and to show my perception of him. I wanted to focus on how mean and greedy he was but at the same time, I wanted my artwork to be unique.
I chose to use the mediums of acrylic, watercolour paints, Posca pens, Artline and rock salt. The red colour stood out, which is important as it represents the bloodshed caused by Herod. I included puppets and puppet strings because Herod was the puppet master who controlled every move of the people.
The left-hand puppet strings hold the babies he wanted to eliminate in fear that Jesus would overtake him. The right-hand puppet strings hold the soldiers who were manipulated by Herod to eliminate the children. The Hebrew words surrounding Herod translate to pride, envy, greed and wrath. Herod had pride in his wrongdoing, envy and wrath for Jesus and showed greed in his outlook. Rock salt was used to embellish Herod’s crown. It was a unique technique and I could colour them with the watercolour paints to the colour that I wanted.
The colour selected for Herod’s robes is an angelic colour showing what he thought of himself. Look closely at Herod’s eyes and you too might be mesmerised and manipulated.
