Charcoal and pastel on acrylic primed mount board.

62 x 42 cm.

I was Artist In Residence at The Marlowe Sessions at Canterbury’s Malthouse Theatre, where the seven of the plays by Marlowe were performed over May and June 2022. I sketched each of the lead actors during rehearsals while they were in character and costume.

Joseph Milson played Mortimer in the play Edward II, an English nobleman who, tired of Edward indulging his 'favourites', saw about the disposition of the king, played brilliantly by Jack Holden.

Christopher Marlowe was a poet, playwright and provocateur whose short, brilliant life remains shrouded in myth and mystery… the suspected spy and man-about-Europe, criminal, and blasphemer, who briefly burned brighter than his contemporary, Shakespeare… the victim stabbed above the eye over an unpaid bill in Deptford at the age of 29.

I am a consulting artist for the Oxford Marlowe Project, a huge undertaking by scholars at The University of Kent which will culminate in the definitive collection of the author's work. These character studies are part of my response to their request for me to help them in 'Visualising Marlowe'.

(Unframed)