Cooke Latham Gallery presents The Maidens, an installation of new ceramic works by British artist Serena Korda.
Korda’s recent practice has centred around a process of worldbuilding, creating an ever-evolving environment for the protagonist at the centre of her own fiction – a Giantess, based on the Greek siren Parthenope, whose monumental oceanic necklace And She Cried me a River (2021) recently showed in ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ curated by Jenni Lomax at Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples and the Hayward Gallery’s ‘Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art.’
In this new series, Korda expands upon the world of this imagined giantess, building her a spectral female entourage inspired by Penelope’s twelve handmaidens in the Odyssey. Peripheral characters, the handmaid- ens aided Penelope in the daily weaving and unravelling of a funeral shroud – a cunning strategy to put off the suitors that accumulated in Odysseus’s absence. Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Penelopiad’ focuses on the untold female perspectives within this familiar myth. Similarly, Korda reviews the narrative through a feminist lens, placing the maidens centre stage, their murder the ultimate expression of their lack of agency.
Influenced by the palette of majolica pottery, baroque excess and the garish colours that would have originally embellished classical marble sculptures, the installation will be comprised of several human-scaled headdresses, helmets, and hairdos adorned with frivolous decoration.
| Duration | 09 February 2023 - 17 March 2023 |
| Times | Wed-Fri 10am-6pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Cooke Latham Gallery |
| Address | 41 Parkgate road, London SW11 4NP, , |
| Contact | / gallery@cookelathamgallery.com / www.cookelathamgallery.com/ |