The Cream of Denmark

The Cream of Denmark reveals the protagonists of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as seen from the title-character’s point of view. Thus has moved from the biographical into the realm of fictional portraiture. Like snapshots taken for a scrapbook, the portraits are given simple, explanatory titles: “Mummy”, “My New Father”, “My Girlfriend”. The style of the paintings reflect the mental decline and brooding, distrustful mindset of literature’s favorite antihero.

The visual take on what the artist refers to as “The play that starts bad and gets worse”, draws heavily from the artist’s own life experiences. It shares with viewers an emotional intimacy that touches on themes of love, betrayal, and depression. The perspective of each work reveals as much as the subjects do themselves, and leaves them open to a multitude of possible interpretations. The characters are neither good nor evil, their beauty and their flaws layered together in broad, sweeping strokes. The world that Scherman depicts seems to follow Hamlet’s mandate to “represent reality, holding a mirror up to virtue, to vice, and to the spirit of the times.”

Paintings by Series