Owen Davey, “The Hundred-Eyed Giant Argus Panoplies”, 2016, Cover Illustration for the Directory of Illustration #33

Owen Davey is an award-winning illustrator living and working in Leicester, England. He graduated with a BA degree in illustration from Falmouth University. Davey was the illustrator of the iPad App of the Year 2015 game, “The Robot Factory”.

Davey created the artworks for the cover, endpapers, title page and contents page of the Directory of Illustration #33. The book is an annual of work by professional illustrators which is sent out to Art Directors and the year’s theme was centred around the idea of ‘Made You Look’. He decided to approach the images with a loose narrative idea around the Ancient Greek story of Argus, a hundred-eyed monster…

Zeus began an affair with a beautiful nymph named Io but when his wife Hera returned home, Zeus turned Io into a white heifer to hide her. Not deceived, Hera demanded the cow as a gift and sent Io to a hundred-eyed giant called Argus Panoplies to guard her. Furious, Zeus sent Hermes to slay Argus. Hermes attempted to lull the giant to sleep but then stabbed him with his sword. Hera honoured Argus by placing all but two of his hundred eyes into the tail of her favourite bird, the Peacock. Io eventually returned to her original form.