The Faerie Lad and the statue of Eros

A week or so later I had business in the West end again, and I remembered the invite from the Guardians of Piccadilly to stop by for a quick chat and hello and a photographic snap or two. As soon as I arrived in the square, literally moments after descending off the 88 bus, which I again took from the upper end of Regents street near Oxford circus station, I was immediately met by a jolly smiling spirit, floating serenely across my view, clicking his heels as he did so, these Piccadilly guardians certainly don’t waste anytime standing on ceremony!

         Whilst on the bus, I remembered with excitement how the Piccadilly Guardians had spoken to me a week earlier, and I had this idea to use the famous statue known as ‘Eros’ ( the Angel of Christian Charity ) as a visual counter point and ironic backdrop within my photographic compositions. I wanted to contrast real Angelic beings with one of the most photographed images of a classical western depiction of a winged god, especially as that Christmas they had built a domed structure around it, making the statue resemble a giant snow dome. Wouldn’t it be something if I could persuade one the Angelic guardians there to don a figurative mantel and to appear directly above the famous statue? What a wonderful and fun way that would be to enlighten viewers and showcase the similarities and differences between the realities of their true divine natures and existence, compared in contrast to the idealizations and perceptions we have developed culturally of them. Well, I didn’t have long to wait for that to happen, in a mere matter of moments I had captured on camera exactly that! Well…sort of.

         There he was, humanlike in size, scale and proportions, floating high above Eros from right to left, leaving a faint etheric trail in his wake, as Eros in perfect profile leaned from left to right pointing his arrow at some unsuspecting passerby from the safety of his temporary snow dome construct, with the Lillywhites building in the background. Our Angelic friend here would probably be recognised by most as some sort of large advanced Faery Being. He is wonderfully attired, sporting a waist length jacket, tight fitting breeches, smart shoes, a wide brimmed hat on his head of some sort, and a dramatic large flowing cape around his shoulders. Our Faery friend here is a confident and cheeky fellow, he looked me straight in the eye with a rye smile on his face, with hands on hips akimbo, he leaned his body at an angle as if leaping upwards to click his heels together, like something out of Mary Poppins or some other jolly 1960’s musical starring Dick van Dyke. There is also a perception of ‘wing like’ radiations issuing forth from his shoulders that encapsulated and surrounded his form as well as his wide out stretched cape.

         Now I know I asked for an Angelic force to appear dramatically above the statue of Eros in dynamic fashion, but honestly this was the last thing I was expecting to see, I wasn’t expecting it to happen like this! Absolutely unbelievable, a good thing I have the photograph to prove otherwise!

Excerpt from the forth coming book, Dawn of The Elementals

by Jeorge Asare-Djan ©