Description

Deliver Us From Evil (Narnia) Deluxe Mark Davies

This is the follow up piece to last year’s Narnia inspired ‘For Now I Am Winter’ and depicts Spring breaking within the forest. The previous piece hinted that Spring was coming even though Narnia was gripped by Winter under the White Witches rule with snow drops sprouting around the slain Aslan who had been turned to stone. What we see in this piece is a scene where Aslan has killed the Witch and her army defeated by the children. A wounded Aslan strides through the forest and onwards, his job done and leaving behind a beautiful forest that is being transformed with the positivity that  Spring brings.

Subtle detailing radiates from the King’s body to give him an ethereal quality, embracing the Christ-like similarities that C J Lewis gave Aslan from being sacrificed and then resurrected to save his Kingdom. The title ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ is a link to this, taken from the Lords Prayer it acts as the call for help from the good people within Narnia who wished to be freed from their eternal Winter. As with the previous piece there is a double narrative here and it is one that touches on an individual’s state of mind and their depression – effectively being in Winter. ‘For Now I Am Winter’ referred to the acceptance of this but as a temporary and one that the individual embraced knowing that Spring would come.

So this piece is confirmation of that belief and tracks that point where things start to freshen and grow leading to a positive stage that can lead to Summer yet one that still has the remnants of the darkness of Winter in the shadows that can cloud the clear. With mental health being so much more widely acknowledged and spoken about I hope that many can relate to this piece and identify with their own Aslan.

Mark Davies is a mixed media and digital artist from Cambridgeshire in the East of England.