artwork > drawing

Desdemona was Othello's wife, whom he murdered in her sleep, wrongly believing that she had betrayed him. My drawing of her is a resurrection in action, with the left figure as the dead Desdemona and the right figure the resurrected one. Between them lies a minx with a toad in its mouth, a reference to a line in the play when Othello declares he would rather be a toad in the minx's mouth than see her live in her betrayal. The drawing is the second in a series resurrecting Shakespeare's murdered women. Ophelia from Hamlet was the first, and as with Desdemona, I brought her back to life in the very place of her death, in the water.

Teresa Enriquez Collection