The Raven 1998
Andreas Engel

oil on canvas
36″x54″

$12,000 Unframed.
Interested? Email your request here.

A personal note about this piece:

Growing up in Guatemala, I occasionally visited Antigua, Guatemala. The city holds remnants of architecture built in the 1500’s by Spanish conquistadors and eventually destroyed by a series of earthquakes beginning in the 1700’s. This painting is of the ruins of the Church of Santa Rosa de Lima built in 1570 for a sisterhood known for their white clothing. Visiting this structure in the 90’s I was drawn to the contrast of the remaining intricate façade coupled with the hauntingly vacant internal space—once a dome, and now open to the sky and the elements.

Painted with thick layers of oil paint applied with a palette knife, the surface quality replicates the cracked plaster of the actual structure. Thematically, I added the raven to signal a spiritual presence coupled with a shadow of the past. –Æ