Medea, Act I & II (Feuerbach & Van Loo)

Commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, where it was displayed in 2022, this broad and boldly chromatic diptych depicts two climactic scenes from the ancient Greek tragedy of Medea. In the narrative, Medea, a sorceress, is driven by revenge to murder her own sons after the betrayal of her husband Jason, whom she had aided in his pursuit of the golden fleece. The paintings are made with acrylic and coffee—a commodity Chase Hall associates with the exploitation of Black people through the transatlantic slave trade as well as a metaphor for pigmentation as an indicator of race, its juxtaposition with white cotton canvas an evocation of Hall’s identity as the biracial son of a white mother and Black father. In addition to identifying moments of high drama in the first and second acts of the operatic staging of Medea, the title references German painter Anselm Feuerbach (1829–1880) and French painter Charles-André van Loo (1705–1765), whose own depictions of Medea inspired Hall’s monumental compositions.