Original artwork description:

“War Lord” Hamilcar Barca, is a hybrid sculpture between a huge marionette and an instalation. The character is inspired by Gistave Flaubert's passionate description, with a tender touch of masculinity. It is based on a historical personality Hamilcar Barca, a war lord in Ancient Carthage. It is made from paper mache, found objects, crystals, beads and textil materials on wired construction. Barca's Blue War Elephant accompanies him forever. The sculpture levitates in open space suspended in strings, like a giant marionette. The hight is variable depending on hanging. “War Lord” has a sacral, idol-like presence in space.
From series "Salammbô. Le royaume perdu", based on French novelist Gistave Flaubert's historical book "Salammbô".
The great French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) goes to Carthage to seek refuge - in this case from the uproar caused by his previous novel "Madame Bovary". Flaubert travels around North Africa, thoroughly gets to know the testimonies of historians, orientalists and archaeologists of his time; more than four years of studies culminate in a novel “Salammbô” centered on the mercenary revolt in Carthage (240-238 AD) between the First and Second Punic Wars, as well as the femme fatale, the warlord Hamilcar Barca's (died around 228 AD) daughter Salammbô, priestess of the goddess Tanita. An inextricable tangle of passions is intertwined around her.
Salammbô is a figment of Flaubert's imagination (sources say that Hamilcar had a daughter, maybe even two or three, but neither their names nor their life stories are yet known to us). Flaubert endowed her with youth, beauty, a little mystical exaltation and almost desperate courage. The lust inspired by Salammbô leads the rebel leader Matho to go conquer Carthage and die an agonizing death at the end of the novel. Erotic passions merge with political and religious ones in the novel; brave warriors, passionate lovers and wise priests inhabit a space where the sacred is indistinguishable from the profane. Here there are both cruel battles and torture of enemies, as well as insanely magnificent feasts; here children are sacrificed to Moloch and songs of praise are sung to Tanita, the simultaneously virginal and maternal goddess of war, the Moon and female fertility. Flaubert portrays all these scenes in extreme detail, with the perfectionism of a naturalist, while not losing the pathos of a romantic.

Materials used:

Papier mache, fabric, textile, found objects, crystals, beads, wires

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