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£

1500

The May Queen

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Medium:

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions:

50x50cm

Style:

Expressionism

Year Created:

2025

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The May Queen traditionally symbolizes spring, renewal, and fertility. However, the concept’s cultural significance reveals deeper implications, especially when viewed through a feminist lens. The role of the May Queen often tokenistically elevates women for their beauty, youth, and reproductive symbolism, reinforcing narrow ideals of femininity, while sidelining women’s intellect, autonomy and achievements. While cloaked in celebration, the tradition echoes patriarchal values, casting women as ornamental and nurturing rather than powerful or complex. Although some modern reinterpretations attempt to reclaim the May Queen as a figure of empowerment, the legacy of her representation still warrants scrutiny for the way it subtly enforces dated gender roles under the guise of festivity. This work explores the central figure of this modern, troubled May Queen against a backdrop that explores varied facets of both human femininity and masculinity in a digitally connected world. The painting’s pyramidal structure references renaissance and later art, suggesting ascension and spiritual elevation while subverting it, both through the subject’s expression and her direct gaze and the mass of writhing humanity that is elevating her. The May Queen was amongst the winners of the Boomer Art Prize in 2025, and is exhibited on Artsy.net.

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Ewan Story

London-born, Ewan had a long career in advertising as an art director, a writer and a creative director before he decided to concentrate exclusively on his contemporary art practice several years ago. Ewan is the winner of several prestigious art prizes, the latest of which saw his work feature in 100 Emerging Artworks 2025, a global art award from the Arts to Hearts Project. He is also in line to win a prize as a Finalist/Honourable at the Almenara Art Prize, another international and widely recognised award. He is currently in the midst of a postgraduate MA in Fine Art at Falmouth University, and embracing new potential directions, collaborations and further possibilities to develop his practice.

The May Queen traditionally symbolizes spring, renewal, and fertility. However, the concept’s cultural significance reveals deeper implications, especially when viewed through a feminist lens. The role of the May Queen often tokenistically elevates women for their beauty, youth, and reproductive symbolism, reinforcing narrow ideals of femininity, while sidelining women’s intellect, autonomy and achievements. While cloaked in celebration, the tradition echoes patriarchal values, casting women as ornamental and nurturing rather than powerful or complex. Although some modern reinterpretations attempt to reclaim the May Queen as a figure of empowerment, the legacy of her representation still warrants scrutiny for the way it subtly enforces dated gender roles under the guise of festivity. This work explores the central figure of this modern, troubled May Queen against a backdrop that explores varied facets of both human femininity and masculinity in a digitally connected world. The painting’s pyramidal structure references renaissance and later art, suggesting ascension and spiritual elevation while subverting it, both through the subject’s expression and her direct gaze and the mass of writhing humanity that is elevating her. The May Queen was amongst the winners of the Boomer Art Prize in 2025, and is exhibited on Artsy.net.

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