Hercules and Achelous

Here you see a shattered statue of Hercules fighting Achelous. Only this in representation the artist has spray painted ‘No More Heroes’ across the chest of Hercules and shattered the whole thing into 487 pieces. D!VE’s artistic practise calls on many different disciplines to create these images, but they are always realised in the end as stencils. The artists approach to creating work comes from his belief in the idea of ‘Doing the best you can with what you have’. The limitations of working with stencils are what attracted the artist to the discipline. colour, contrast and even the paper holding together. When all you have is a piece of paper, a Stanley blade and a can of spray paint, how intricate you can make the work is a testament to overcoming limitations. That is why, for this piece DIVE chose the depiction of Hercules fighting Achelous. The statue is known for its intricate details, from the muscular forms of the combatants to the scales on the snake, it presented an opportunity to create a highly detailed piece.