Your Majesty: Dear Charlotte

This piece was created for the 2022 FabFest Charlotte on July 22-23, 2022. In keeping with the Beatles' pioneering desire to experiment with unconventional formats in their music and the packaging of their albums, their manager Brian Epstein commissioned portrait photographer Richard Avedon to photograph the band members and design a set of posters that would visually capture the new psychedelic direction of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. The black and white photos of the four Beatles were transformed into vivid and psychedelic images – and published for the first time in the January 9, 1968 edition of the US magazine Look.
I have taken my oil painting of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg (our city namesake) and manipulated the colors in a similar psychedelic style. I added our city's skyline as her crown to incorporate a Charlotte theme and borrowed John Lennon's glasses as another nod to the Fab Four.
Additional hand painting on various areas provides exciting futuristic movement.
This mixed-media piece pays tribute to the band's pioneering in music and culture.
The title is a conglomeration of Beatles songs, “Your Majesty” and “Dear Prudence”.