Grayfia (Painting)

Painted in a crouching position, like a hyena ready to leap, is a human female, short and slight of build, with a frail, sickly looking complexion. Her figure appears emaciated, sickly, and around her scrawny neck is a heavy steel collar upon which the name ‘Francesca Visconti’ is carved.

She has short black hair in a bob, and wears black clothing, black knee high boots, and a ragged black scarf. At her hip she wears a dagger, the blade of which oozes blood. The background seems to be a cave of some sort, the floor splattered with blood, guts, and writhing maggots.

There might perhaps be a beauty in the curve of this woman’s face, but it’s eclipsed by the base, degraded nature which she holds herself. Her eyes, wild with anger, hunger and malevolence stare out at the viewer, her lips turned back into a snarl revealing vampiric fangs. Yet there is nothing really of a graceful predator about her, instead she reminds one more of a scavenger, a rat, a creature kicked and abused and debased into something that, whilst perhaps it should be pitied, is instead ugly, befouled, disgusting. A sense of palpable revulsion emanates from this painting, it’s hard to look at for too long.

At the bottom right of the picture, very small, is a tiny black rams head, in profile, with ‘A.S.’ beneath it.