Daughter of Sky Print

A Warrior Goddess of fierce and potent wisdom. This piece is a kind of meeting of two goddesses - Ishtar/Inanna, the Mesopotamian Queen of Heaven, and the Hindu deity Durga, whose protective ferocity is unleashed for the liberation of the oppressed. Though it sort of created itself, as my work so often does, she has the wings and celestial crown of Ishtar/Inanna and the many-weaponed arms of Durga. Interestingly both these goddesses are depicted riding a lion, and there is discussion as to whether they grew from the same iconographic root, though I didn't know that when I merged the two goddesses in my painting! I'm interested in how these very early goddesses were associated with Venus/Aphrodite, the bright morning star, rising just after dawn. Also it strikes me now that there might be some ancient correlation between the eight arms of Durga and the eight-pointed star of Venus? My Daughter of the Sky is riding a lioness: born from the stars, with her mammalian claws in the earth, riding, rising into a new day. The original drawing was done in pencil, charcoal, and oil pastels in 2021.