Billy Dante

"The butterfly flutters and the muffled mutters of people that see the creation and empowerment of beauty. Work strives to get to a point, to get to an end, but end is no town, in which to house a creature that has dreams of transforming and transcending. Alchemy is the journey and metal is just a dragging weight." Billy Dante

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The degree show exhibit was a mixed media installation consisting of paintings, sculpture and video projection. The work explored alchemy, the journey from one state to another, particularly taking inspiration from Dante Alighieri's journey with the Arch Angel Virgil through the Inferno in the epic poem 'The Divine Comedy'.

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The entire space circled around a central column upon which a mummified figure sculpture lay. The paintings on the surrounding walls carried the viewer around the room, offering different glimpses like windows to the under world. Each painting comprised of elements related to birth and death with an undercurrent of sexual acts (the driving force of life). 

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