Exhibited at Diagonal Café, Toulouse, France, The Fertile sow: a pagan icon, reached the most bids during the auction of “Père Noël dans tous ses états”. The pig is not an animal often associated with Christmas – the birth of Christ!

I am fascinated by ancient mythologies and how they are rewritten and revisited in time and place. What is the pig (unclean/taboo for some and for others a symbol of good/fertility) doing next to a naked pagan father at Christmas in the drawing? Further more we can ask – why is the father entwined with a saintly figure of Mary, and who are the holy characters in the back ground holding a baby? The answers lie in our archaic memories, forgotten if not extinct.

For most of us for us (to read and understand) the bag of Toys at the forefront of the drawing is all that is important after thousands of years of traditions confused and illegible.

Beyond the intended confusion, clear to see in the drawing, is that the love between the central characters – whoever they are – is still very strong.