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Description
Well, more like Janus cut in half. I didn't consider the other half of this acrylic and gouache work worthy of a scan. Rest assured, though, this character did have the traditional two heads to begin with. The story behind this creation is long and a little gruesome, so I'll explain it as briefly as possible and with all the gory details removed.

This image was a prep painting for a sculpture I made for an A-level art module. The topic I chose to look at was the use and abuse of animals in art, where I primarily examined George Stubbs and Damien Hirst. At the most basic level, my essays on these artists concluded in the decision to create something which mixed the disturbing yet fascinating practice of animal anatomy with a far deeper metaphysical intention. Hence I decided to depict the god of doorways, Janus, with a salmon head (salmon being short-lived fish where the entrance into the world represented by birth and the exit from it in the form of death are closely juxtaposed). There's a lot more to it than that, and I have saved you from looking at the yucky and less refined half of the painting. Still, the background's not particularly great here...

Oh, and Janus is grasping a key, which being the god of doorways, he is often portrayed holding.

Description
Well, more like Janus cut in half. I didn't consider the other half of this acrylic and gouache work worthy of a scan. Rest assured, though, this character did have the traditional two heads to begin with. The story behind this creation is long and a little gruesome, so I'll explain it as briefly as possible and with all the gory details removed.

This image was a prep painting for a sculpture I made for an A-level art module. The topic I chose to look at was the use and abuse of animals in art, where I primarily examined George Stubbs and Damien Hirst. At the most basic level, my essays on these artists concluded in the decision to create something which mixed the disturbing yet fascinating practice of animal anatomy with a far deeper metaphysical intention. Hence I decided to depict the god of doorways, Janus, with a salmon head (salmon being short-lived fish where the entrance into the world represented by birth and the exit from it in the form of death are closely juxtaposed). There's a lot more to it than that, and I have saved you from looking at the yucky and less refined half of the painting. Still, the background's not particularly great here...

Oh, and Janus is grasping a key, which being the god of doorways, he is often portrayed holding.