Mark Sheeky Artworks

About this painting

This was based on a subconsciously sketched note about the execution of King Charles I of England. The monarch, and therefore commander, of the royalist forces in the English civil wars, Charles I was executed in January 1649, under the banner of democracy, by English parliamentary forces. Four years later Oliver Cromwell dissolved parliament and became Lord Protector until his death in 1658.

A wave, like a hand, washes over a sinking skull. The transparent water above the horizon reveals a vivid red sunset, fading rapidly to darkness almost like the interior of a cave. Painted in one stroke into a wet background, the long curling hair of Charles I falls from the back of the wave, with his distinctive beard and moustache before it. The blue water in the foreground looks like cloth, the draped flag of democracy perhaps.