50cm x 82cm oil on canvas board.
Study based on Giambologna’s sculpture work. Phillip Carrero.
The small bronze portrays Hercules, recognisable by the lion’s pelt tied around his waist, as he raisesAntaeus from the ground and crushes him.
The subject refers to one of the innumerable exploits tackled by the hero, as narrated in the myths. While he was travelling through Libya in quest of the golden apples, Hercules had to confront the giant Antaeus, son of Neptune (god of the sea) and Gaia (goddess of the earth), who obliged all travellers to fight with him, after which he invariably killed them. In fact Antaeus was invulnerable as long as his feet were on the earth, and hence was in contact with his mother. Consequently Hercules lifted him off the ground, and then suffocated him by crushing him against his own body.
The bronze is set upon a triangular base, which is balanced in turn on three tortoises.
Currans Hill artist Phil Carrero started as an impressionable 16 year old drawing charcoal portraits through the streets of Buenos Aires. He worked his way up from drawing to painting and begun to sell his works around that time. Coming to Australia in 1973 , at the age of 23, Mr Carrero continued his studies in Art and completed an apprenticeship for four months to get himself better acquainted with portraiture painting. Meanwhile, for almost ten years produced and sold many ship portraits and marine paintings. -After that I begun getting around 12 commissions a year for just portraits. That's the point when he begun to make a living out of painting-, he said. He paints in the Traditional, Realistic style ... English and Italian schools, his portraits can resemble the Grand Manner style of the 19th and 20th centuries in England and later, America. (extracted from "Artist has brush with thieves", Macarthur Advertiser, January 2004)