Part of the Tell Me a Fairy Story series, this work explores the uneasy boundary between religion, folklore and myth. The central figure adopts the pose and visual language of traditional Christian iconography. The gold halo recalls medieval saints, while the skeletal body echoes representations of Christ, martyrdom and mortality. Yet these sacred references are interrupted by Father Christmas, Victorian imagery, monkeys in hats, children's illustrations and fragments of popular storytelling.
The work asks whether religion is fundamentally different from the fairy tales and myths that have preceded it. Christianity itself absorbed and transformed older pagan traditions, repurposing symbols, festivals and stories into new forms. Winter solstice celebrations became Christmas. Ancient myths were not erased so much as rewritten.
At the centre stands a skeleton: the one truth shared by saints, sinners, heroes, monsters and children. Around it accumulate the stories we tell to explain the world, comfort ourselves, frighten our children and give meaning to our lives. Whether we call them scripture, folklore, legend or fairy tale, they all clothe the same fragile human frame. Christianity, paganism, fairy tales, Santa Claus, folklore, consumerism and mythology all become different narratives wrapped around the same mortal framework.
The question the work poses is not whether one story is true and another false, but why we need stories at all.