This painting is about the story of the hunter Orion from Greek mythology. Salaz states that when he is young he “hunts for fame, pride, and vanity. At the end of his life he hunts with/for Artemis, for the sake of maintaining harmony with Nature.”
The painting depicts the moment when Orion asks Artemis to marry him (she is seen here as the tiny golden figure on his chest). “She denies the request, and Orion regresses to his former violent ways and tries to rape her fellow hunting maidens, the Pleiades. The gods intervene and turn the women into doves. I interpret the moment psychologically as the universe helping him transform his inner violence into peace, as he is suddenly realizing his own darkness.”
