Color Me Mad and Bad: Byron in Contemporary Art

In this lecture, Kaila Rose will not be focusing on Byron’s relationships with his own contemporary painters– but instead showcase conversations she has had with artists today who have been inspired to explore themselves through shaping works of featuring Lord Byron. Some questions she posed to these artists––what was it that drew them to Byron and in what ways did moments erupt in life that they worked out on the canvas through Byron––illuminate a line of attraction resulting in artworks that capture a distinct Byronic aura. By reading Byron’s texts, these artists developed a desire to touch, to paint, to linger in his lines through creating their own translation of experiencing identification with the poet. The uncanniness in similarities of all artists––even in the diversity of their expressions––is what I will be sharing with the Byron community to honor and celebrate the continuation Byron’s influence in contemporary art.