the hunter & the hunted (after The Death of Actaeon)

for upcoming solo show The Harbingers Lustre Gallery opening oct 8

101x122cm / 40×48” acrylic on canvas

The Death of Actaeon, red-figure skyphos, c. 400-350 BC

Actaeon is out hunting. He hunts successfully, albeit excessively, through to midday. He happens upon Diana, the goddess of the hunt, bathing naked in the woods. Angered that Actaeon has seen her nakedness, Diana forbids him to speak or he shall he be turned into a stag. He attempts to yell to his hunting party & immediately begins transformation into a stag. Actaeon is then chased by his own hunting dogs. The dogs, unable to recognize their master, kill him.

But is really just for mere chance that Actaeon is punished so severely for? As David Flores so eloquently discusses in Perilous Ascent: An Exploration of Actaeon and Revolution, “It may have been mischance that Actaeon walked upon Diana(Artemis) and her nymphs while bathing; it may have also been fortune’s fault that he was privy to the nakedness of a goddess. Nonetheless, this trespass still seems to leave some of the fault with Actaeon. He is flawed somehow, and this makes him insufficient to properly interact with Diana. This is hinted at in the beginning of the story. Actaeon seems to be obsessed with the hunt in some improper manner. He seems to care little about his prey: “It was on a mountain stained with the blood of many slaughtered beasts…’Both nets and spears, my friends, are dripping with our quarry’s blood, and the day has given us good luck enough.’” These lines reveal a vice of Actaeon. He derives too much pleasure from the hunt, slaughtering seemingly most if not all the prey he can find. It is an excess. In other variations his flaws are greater: Actaeon brags that his hunting abilities are greater than Diana’s; in another he tries to make her his consort.”All of these variations point to his insufficiency. Diana, by transforming him, deems him unworthy and makes his flaws manifest by transforming him into a beast.”

https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/content/perilous-ascent-an-exploration-of-actaeon-and-revolution

pmd 2026