Dante's Euphoria, 2021.
For the Timeline/Anniversaries project, I created my piece Dante's Euphoria to comment on how the narrative of the Divina Commedia has been preserved and reintroduced into entertainment and popular culture of the modern age. Drawing inspiration from Dante Alighieri's profound impact on the arts, I wanted my art piece to reveal general alignments in plot and storyline while referencing season one of HBO's hit series Euphoria (2019). With both establishing a path from anguish to peace, Dante’s Euphoria places protagonist Rue Bennett as Dante's voyager, using the eyes of Jules Vaughn to replicate the role of Beatrice. Inspired by Gustave Dore’s illustrations, both characters are set in either the Inferno or Paradise and accompanied by set iconographies such as the laurel wreath and celestial rose. Overall, this painting is set to reflect how Rue's hope to be better is reliant on her love for Jules, similar to how Dante’s love for Beatrice motivates him to move through Inferno to Paradise.