Charcoal and pastel on acrylic primed mount board

62 x 42 cm

Signed by artist and subject.

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.

Michael Maloney played Guise, who led the terror in the play Massacre at Paris. Sensorily shocking and intellectually gripping, the play's dramatic action spans a tumultuous two decades in French history to unfold for its audience the tragic consequences of religious fanaticism, power politics, and dynastic rivalry.

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)