EMPRESS WU ZETIAN’S CORONA
In pandemic my friends keep calling & emailing to check on me during “lockdown”; as the most ‘out-every-night’ social woman Seattle they probably assumed I’d go off the deep end. My studio - too often procrastinated - has become a haven of sanity (ok, all that candy I keep out there is also a lure. Yup, I’m doing my part to “Fatten the Curve” as per Fauci)….
Much of my art involves verbiage/puns and assemblage decorating my frames, plus I've always been a fan of classical portraiture (& people in general). The lightbulb moment struck: CORONA obviously means CROWN as well as COVID, so the CORONA QUEENS (all powerful women, another thing the world needs now along with laughs?) series was born.
EMPRESS WU ZHAO (17 February 624– 26 November 705, ruled 665-705) commonly known as Wu Zetian, alternatively Wu Hou. Emperor Taizong gave her the name Wu Mei, meaning “glamorous”. Under her 40-year reign, China grew larger, corruption reduced, culture and economy revitalized. A charismatic, cunning, vengeful (she had her rivals viciously tortured & killed - potentially even her own child - arranged her grandhildren’s “suicides”, poisoned her husband, exiled her sons). Wu was ambitious, (highly unusual) well-educated woman who was nonetheless hugely popular, expanding China’s reach and re-opening the Silk Road (which had been closed because of plague in 682).
