THE HEADSMAN
by crawwlspace
$500
Papier mache and acrylic paint on canvas. This is one of my more recent pieces, made in the summer of 2023. It is also one of my quicker ones, as it took a little under two weeks to complete. The foundation is a repurposed canvas that originally had a very bright and ugly photo print of a mountain range on it. I papier-mached over that and painted it off-white. I built up the structure using papier-mache as well, and I painted the face onto it with acrylic paint. So, what is it? Well, this image is actually very closely based on an executioner mask from the Tower of London. I wish I could tell you the year. The mask would have been made of iron, had two eye holes, and a hole for speech. There also would have been a long nose going down the center of the face and the smile would have been a bit more crooked. It was customary for an executioner to conceal their identity using a mask or hood. As far as the grim expression, one can only assume that it was meant to be some sort of sick joke. Oh, the British and their humo(u)r. THE HEADSMAN is the imagination of what an executioner creature might look like. Instead of a human with a mask, what if the Headsman was its own breed entirely?