FALL OF ICARUS 2 is quite minimalist. The body is stylised whilst the hands are grotesquely out of proportion. The wings which have ceased to exist, are hinted at by a simple outline structure encompassing the arms. A fiery red sky encloses oppressively around the subject who is falling backwards, plunging to his tragic death.

In order to escape from King Minos, the prodigious inventor Daedalus built wings for himself and his son Icarus, fashioned from feathers and held together by wax. He warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as it would melt his wings, and not too close to the sea, as it would dampen them, making it hard to fly. The disobedient Icarus fell to his death after the wax melted. The sea in which he drowned was then named the Icarian Sea.

Keith Balzan

 

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