About Titania: the Faerie Queen at Sleep:

Another painting by Damon Denys inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", this faerie painting features the Queen of the faeries, Titania. Titania is a central character in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream". In Shakespeare's play, Oberon, the King of the Faeries, attempts to win Titania’s affections by enchanting her with a love potion--the juice of the purple love-in-idleness flower--while she sleeps. When Titania awakens, she will fall madly in love with the first person she sees. Unfortunately for Oberon, Titania awakens to see and fall in love with Bottom, a fool who literally has the head of a donkey, thanks to a mischievous enchantment by Puck, who is Oberon’s lackey in his quest to win Titania‘s love.

The subject of the painting, therefore, portrays the moment of peace and happiness just before love, with all its unpredictability, turns Titania and Oberon’s world upside down. In this way the painting Titania: The Faerie Queen at Sleep is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment on the nature of love itself--its power to make one both elated and miserable, and the need to savor the moments when one is free of love‘s roller coaster and can enjoy a moment of peace and calm before the storm. With this in mind, it’s an interesting side note that the model for Titania was, in fact, the artist’s former partner. One can only wonder if the painting is perhaps more of a personal comment than the artist cares to let on.

The setting for the painting is fictional, drawn largely from the artist, Damon Denys’, imagination. Also, the tree was not actually modeled from a large tree. To get a very exaggerated, rough textured surface with a lot of sharp bark, the tree was actually modeled from a small tropical plant in a greenhouse. The artist viewed scores of curious tropical plants before finding one that was appropriately rough, but also had soft moss at its base. Titania sleeps peacefully on the soft moss, while the rough bark rises up near her--symbolic of the unfortunate turn of events that will soon follow when she leaves her peaceful dreaming and awakens to fall in love with a donkey-headed fool.