Harlequin Billy Budd Glyndebourne Mug by Sara Berman

Harlequin Billy Budd Glyndebourne Mug by Sara Berman

Fine Bone China

This mug features an original Harlequin painting from Sara Berman

Size: H8.5 x W7.5cm

The Harlequin is used by Berman as an underpaintings, a meticulous arrangement of coloured diamonds that is the foundation for the majority of her paintings. It has been a central motif in Berman's work over the past decade, functioning as a way to construct and destabilise gender, identity, whilst interrogating ideas of revelation and concealment. In the context of Berman's response to Billy Budd, where rank, uniform and discipline structure both appearance and behaviour, these ideas take on a particular resonance. Dress, gesture and gaze - central to both performance and Berman's work - are used to negotiate the boundaries between private and public selves, the fictional and real.

This mug features an original painting from Sara Berman's exhibition, Entanglements, a major body of new work made in response to Michael Grandage's production of Britten's Billy Budd. The exhibition is on display in our Art Gallery throughout the Glyndebourne Festival season.