The Last Unicorn

This painting is a meditation on transformation, myth, and the delicate interplay between life and death. At its center stands a skeletal unicorn, an echo of something both magical and long past, yet still present in this moment of quiet beauty. It exists in a liminal space between worlds, between reality and fantasy, life and decay, movement and stillness.

Surrounding the unicorn, hummingbird hawk moths flutter through the air, their presence a source of fascination. Though they are moths, they behave like hummingbirds, hovering, darting, and pollinating. This duality, this defiance of simple categorization, mirrors the unicorn itself: a creature of legend, yet stripped to bare bone, still exuding an ethereal grace.

My inspiration for this piece is also deeply rooted from The Last Unicorn, a film that has always stayed with me. In the story, the unicorn comes from a forest where it is always spring, a place of timeless beauty and safety. Yet, to find the truth and seek others like her, she must leave, embracing all the seasons, the warmth and the cold, the light and the dark, the moments of wonder and sorrow alike. This journey, one of stepping beyond the known into the vast unknown, resonates in the scene I have created. The unicorn stands in a flower field under a star-filled night sky, surrounded by the fleeting dance of pollinating wings. There is no eternal spring here, only the shifting cycles of nature, of change, of things passing and being reborn.

Through this painting, I seek to capture that tension, the beauty in the ephemeral, the wonder in what is both alive and fading. It is an invitation to embrace the in-between spaces, to see the magic in transformation, and to step outside the familiar, even if it means entering a world of fleeting seasons.