Hamlet

Graphite and Digital Colour

Since the early 1600s, the Danish Prince has seen many eras, temperaments and treatments. Hamlet has been young, old, wilting, brash- and on one memorable occasion, a singing lion.

I avoided picking one depiction of Hamlet- in this portrait I’ve included three versions of the character instead (as portrayed by Maxine Peake, David Tennant and Kenneth Branagh). The layered faces do double duty- both to show the multiple takes on the character, and to show Hamlet himself looking and judging his actions, introspective to a fault.

I’ve seen actors say that you ‘only get one chance’ to perform Hamlet- there’s a lot of pressure on the role. The multiple faces here speak to that anxiety too- every actor that takes the role has many, many famous performances to live up to.