The West African goddess Mawu with elephant in modern style on canvas (mixed media oil painting)

The goddess Mawu stands for creation, connection with the earth and a gentle, feminine power. Her power animal, the elephant, stands for wisdom, intuition and enormous power from within.

As is the case with the theme of "creation" and genesis itself, this painting was created intuitively and step by step. The many colors themselves were initially a chaos on the canvas, which quickly became orderly again. It wasn't clear at first that these two figures were going to appear on the canvas - but then it was so fitting!

The painting is part of my Mythology seriesin which I paint figures from ancient legends and myths in a modern setting. I do this deliberately because I want to remind you that there are superpowers in all of us and that the heroes, gods etc. are only a symbol of this. The old legends still live on - even in you! But we can interpret them in a modern way.

In this painting, I used texture paste and charcoal powder to visualize the earth and the theme of origin/creation. The collage elements such as writing and butterflies are integrated to make the theme of evolution / development visible and the acrylic inks and spray paints used add many colorful aspects - the aspects of life itself.

At the end, I added gold elements that interact with the light in the room and reflect it in a unique way. This is the symbol of refinement/completion. Because this painting has so many unique elements that give it a special texture, it is currently only available as an original and not as an art print. In an art print, too many of these elements would no longer come into their own.

You can see the development process here: