Europa & the BullEUROPA & THE BULL
Europa & the Bull
Height 48" (80" with plinth) x58"
Edition: 9
Commissioned
in 2003 by Wyeth Europa, a multinational pharmaceutical company that has
its European computer base in the UK, the brief was for a symbol of the
organization and its involvement in Europe.
In more general terms, I wished to present the myth as a symbol of the absorption of Eastern culture into the West (Europa, abducted by the Greek god Zeus, was Phoenician, i.e. Lebanese). In Britain’s rapidly growing multicultural society it might therefore be seen as a hopeful symbol of integration, whilst at the same time emphasizing the importance of our own cultural base, which rests in large part on the Classical tradition from which the story of Europa emanated. Instead of presenting the standard image of Europa as the fearful victim of one of Zeus’s rapes undertaken under the subterfuge of disguise as an animal, I decided to present Europa in her role as a princess; the daughter of the king Agenor sitting proudly on the bull’s back, a willing partner in the foundation of European society.
