One-of-one oil ink monotype on Legion Stonehenge 250 gsm paper, mounted to a compositional gold leaf-gilded wood cradle. 11" x 15" unframed (compositional gold-leaf wooden cradle). Ready to hang.
I Was Cleopatra looks to the historical Cleopatra VII: a polyglot, a strategist, and an active political actor navigating the collapse of her world. Her legacy reaches us filtered through Roman propaganda and later Western literature, recast as exotic, erotic, and excessive—remembered more for spectacle than for governance.
The title draws from Cleopatra by The Lumineers, whose lyrics describe a woman once desired and performing a role, now recalling who she was from a distance. That sense of being misremembered or reduced echoes Cleopatra’s own passage into history.
Modeled after Henri Joseph dit Daniel Ducommun’s marble Cleopâtre, this work holds softness and intellect in balance: a relaxed nude repose paired with quiet symbols of knowledge and strategy—a guiding star and a shield-like seat—suggesting a mind at work even in stillness.
I was Cleopatra, I was taller than the rafters
But that's all in the past now, gone with the wind
