Mark Hetherington Fine Art and Illustration

Images from one of my recent projects, a development from my work on witches to focus on a famous case relatively local to me. I have used different kinds of media and varied a approaches to create a varied body of work which illustrates elements of the story of the Pendle Witches.

The title comes from ‘A Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster’ by Thomas Potts, written in 1612. This book was the record of the trial of the Pendle Witches, and this is what the works in this series represent. On a deeper level though they are meant as an observation on, and response to the rise in intolerance, the right-wing and hate groups in Britain and many other parts of the world.

I want to remind viewers that the Lancashire Witches, as they are also known, aren’t just names in old books or on gifts and knick-knacks from tourist shops in Pendle but were real living people who suffered at the hands of ignorant and bigoted neighbours, and a justice system which may have followed the laws of the time, but which forced a nine-year-old girl to give evidence against her mother, brother and grandmother, as well as others which would lead to their executions by hanging.

Groups such as the English Defence League, and one of it’s former leaders, Stephen ‘Tommy Robinson’ Yaxley-Lennon, have recently making news headlines in recent years for their hate campaigns against Muslims. Hate crimes against other outsider groups, such as the LGBTQ community have also been on the rise and, like Arthur Miller with his play ‘The Crucible’, I felt the Early Modern witch hunts which lasted from circa 1450 to circa 1750 were a good metaphor for these occurrences.

My process was partly inspired by the work of Dave McKean, an artist who works primarily in the world of illustration, comics and graphic novels but who has also worked in film and animation. He uses 3D elements and collage as well as painting in his work to great effect. I utilised a similar mixture of methods and materials, combined with a larger scale than most of my other work but in my own way and with my own themes to create a reflection of both the past and the present.