For her winning Max Mara Art Prize for Women commission, Emma Talbot (b. 1969, UK) questions deeply rooted positions of power, governance, attitudes to nature and representations of women through an acutely personal lens. It takes as a starting point Gustav Klimt’s painting The Three Ages of Woman (1905), which features a naked elderly woman standing in apparent shame.
Over the course of a bespoke six-month Italian residency organised by The Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy, Talbot re-framed the older woman as a figure with agency, capable of overcoming a series of trials similar to The Twelve Labors of Hercules. Through her modern-day trials, the woman reconstructs contemporary society, tackling some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Follow the twists and turns of this contemporary epic across two 11-metre-long free-hanging silk paintings, a life-sized sculptural figure, drawings and an animation.
Lead image: Emma Talbot, Detail from Volcanic Landscape (2022). Acrylic on silk. Courtesy the artist © Carlo Vannini
