Vladimir Kush blows my mind

Since visiting an art gallery in Hawaii over Christmas break, I've been obsessed with artist Vladimir Kush. He's like... a sober Dali. Also, his pieces have strong connections to mythology.

The above painting is titled "Narcissus". In Greek mythology, Narcissus, a hunter known for his beauty, looks into a clear pond and falls in love with his reflection. Every time he tries to lean over and kiss himself, the image is scattered in the ripples, so he resorts to sitting at the edge of the pond and staring into the water. Eventually, he turns into a beautiful flower (that can be found growing on the edges of small bodies of water, hmmmm). In Ovid's version, he commits suicide and the flower grows in his place. This is also where we get the term "narcissism".

This one is simply title "Pearl". According to Greek mythology, the titan Chronus cuts of Uranus' genitals and throws them to the sea. From the foam collected around the immortal flesh is born Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. In Roman mythology, the goddess is Venus and she is born in a clam shell.

"Horn of Babel": in the Bible's story of the Tower of Babel, the people attempt to construct a tower high enough to reach heaven. God punishes them, depriving them of their common language. With language barriers, they aren't inclined to come to an understanding. Vladimir, on the other hand, paints a "Babel horn of plenty". In this town, people live in a horizontal community, which is known to be much more disposed to communicate among themselves and understand each other than residents of the "vertical" (e.g. apartment towers).

"Icarus": the Greek myth tells of the builder, Daedalus, and his son, Icarus, who tried to escape King Minos. Daedalus made wings for the two of them out of feathers left on their cell window sill and wax from candles. They take off from their window and fly above the Aegean sea. Icarus, ignoring his father's warning, flies too close to the sun and the wax on his wings melts; he falls to his death. The feather on the ledge represents their wings.

"Departure of the Winged Ship" is by far my favorite Kush painting. I'm really not so interested in the mythology connections in this case, but seeing as this is for a mythology lit class, I feel obligated to make this relevant...

Apparently there's a lot of references to butterflies in myths. In Ancient Greece, butterflies were linked to the human soul and were considered the souls who had passed away. Also, the Greek word for butterfly is something like "psyche" (as in Cupid and Psyche). Psyche literally means spirit, breath, life, or animating force.

There's more where that came from.... just google Vladimir Kush.