Helen’s Guilt, a pyrography artwork in the Homeric Epic collection, is hand burned and signed by pyrography artist Nicole Fanaff.
Helen’s Guilt was mused after reading the vague descriptions of Helen of Troy. With only 3 physical descriptions of Helen (“white-armed”, “lovely-haired”, and “long-robbed”) the artist took inspiration from beauty standards of Mycenaean women of high status to model features of Helen while still achieving a vague silhouette of the “face that launched 1,000 ships”. Helen’s guilty conscience was another main description Homer’s, The Iliad, used to describe her, even in her introductory scene.
Helen wears her guilt like a robe, adorning the shadows of the violent deaths her countrymen faced, an ugly stain on her beauty, burned forever on an imperfect and ugly wood canvas.
