Lucifer: Morning Star
The planet Venus is visible in the mornings and evenings, and the ancients didn't realize that this was one body. Instead they conceived of it as two bodies, a morning star and an evening star. Mythologically these were brothers, both sons of the Dawn. The morning star was called Lucifer ("Light-bearer") and the evening star was called Hesperus. Unrealized by many of us, the character of Lucifer existed outside of the Judeo-Christian theology with no demonic connotations. If one were to read the astrological treatises of Plato he would see that Plato refers to the planets by the same names (gods) by which we still know them, with the exception of Venus, which he calls "Lucifer." This was typical of old astronomical views. The Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Babylonians all conceived of the planet Venus as Lucifer, the Morning Star, or by his alternate name Phosphorous.
Lucifer is mentioned by name only one time in the Bible, and in that mention there is no association made with Satan. That one mention is in Isaiah, and the prophet is addressing a Babylonian king, most likely Nebuchadnezzar. Isaiah prophesies the fall of this king with all the poetic drama he can muster, and he states that this king is like "Lucifer, the Morning Star," who has fallen from heaven. This act of falling from heaven need not suggest some supernatural event. Since the topic specifically concerns a star then the event of its falling from heaven might easily designate only a fall from the sky. I would assume that the original intent was the observation of the light of the Morning Star being overcome by the rising sun, therefore being blotted out from the sky, or "fallen from heaven." (Otherwise, the Ugaritic Texts, which contain most of what we know of Babylonian mythology, contain a story of God banishing his wives and sons to the desert, and since his sons included the Dusk and the Dawn it is possible that what is being referenced is some variation of that myth.)
(As for the association commonly made with Satan: nowhere in the Bible is it stated that Satan had been an angel named Lucifer who rebelled against God and was expelled from heaven. This is a scenario that has been construed from combining unrelated verses. The first is the mention of Lucifer falling from heaven in Isaiah, and the second is in the Gospel of Luke where there is one brief mention of Satan falling from heaven. Even though this second mention seems to relate directly to the activity of the disciples rather than to some previous celestial event, it is this common action of "falling from heaven" that caused Lucifer and Satan to become synonymous in Christian theology, although this is not Biblical doctrine. Indeed, it could be argued that there was no doctrine of Satan at all among the Jews at the time of Isaiah's mention of Lucifer, since Satan doesn't turn up in the Bible, by name at least, until the very late period of Jewish Biblical scriptures. What is most surprising, in context of Biblical scripture, is that the only other direct association made with "the Morning Star" is actually Jesus. That is in Revelations where Jesus says "I am the root and offspring of David, and the Morning Star.")
And so my depiction of Lucifer has no intended reference to Satan or any demonic manifestation, but is as he was originally conceived of: a young god, bringer of light, son of the Dawn and personification of the morning star. As in the old days, he hails the rising of the sun. Here he is riding on a scarab, or dung beetle, which the Egyptians associated with the rising sun.