Margate is currently hosting a variety of art events related to T.S.Eliot (who wrote the Wasteland here almost a century ago), including a weekend dedicated to cats over Easter. I created this print based on Bulgakov’s the Master and Margarita, and a giant painted banner version of it to hang up at the show. It was a bit last minute, but I got it all done on time. The show is on at the Viking Gallery off Northdown Rd over the long Easter weekend and until the 7th of April.
I hadn’t realised until I was getting the Russian quotes for the text that the book is actually set this week, with the demons’ ball happening on Good Friday. Good synchronicity. The Cyrillic text says “The Master and Margarita” and “Behemoth lives!”
Prints are available from the gallery, or to order online here.
The banner is about 5ft/1.5m tall. It looks small in this photo, but it’s huge in real life. After we’d hung it, me and the curator decided to create a shrine to Behemoth’s demonic powers. The Russian quotes from the book on the wall say “manuscripts don’t burn” and “poison, give me poison”.
What to offer to a demonic Russian cat? Dead flowers, cat food and an empty bottle of vodka.
I also created some fake cult recruitment leaflets, in lieu of business cards.