It's Lysia from Ardath! yessss, on Halloween Night, too! I have not published this picture even in the eleven years (!) I've been publishing this Blog. Some of it is the nudity - I'm hoping that the Blogger censors will let it pass 'cause I identified her as an "art model." Well, she was my model, true, and I think she had done some art modeling, and she was a friend of a friend. She was named Stephanie and was of course a fan and a live action role play gamer and she had the theatrical look.
This Lysia was a commission from a collector who liked my other Corelli illustrations. He wanted his own Lysia but not as I conceived of her. My idea of the Snake Priestess was that of a hugely privileged but crazy girl next door, whose life was full of play-acting and personal drama. A deceptively sweet giggly girl bedecked with jewels and having fun with her (presumably) tame animal friends including the black dragon-snake you see here. She was you might say, training for badness.
My collector wanted not a pretty teen priestess but a grown woman who had achieved a form of authentic evil, who took joy in poisoning an ill-fated suitor in a party entertainment ritual and who manipulated her lover the King. Mr. Client, you see, had just been through a messy divorce, and wanted something to remind him of the wickedness of his recent ex. Having never met the ex in question, I had to make up the face and body who was not Stephanie but still recognizably Lysia. Did Mr. Client really want a picture of an evil being? A beautiful evil Pagan priestess-witch that would truly scare you? Have at it!
You'll see some familiar architecture here, the Temple of the Snake God from 1982. But I was in another city and needed a reference for that temple. I found its match at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University in Washington, DC. This lavishly decorated shrine with its Byzantine archways and domes was perfect for the Snake Priestess and her demented followers. The client loved it. I don't know where this masterpiece is but I am glad I never had to see it again.
Acrylic on hardboard, 20" x 30", winter 1994. Click for closer view.
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