Myths & Metamorphosis was commissioned by New Moves International as part of the One Year On Scheme and was presented at the National Review of Live Art in February 2009. The installation was developed in collaboration with filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio and sound artist Mark Peter Wright.
Helena Hunter presents a menagerie of mythic monsters, hybrid forms, and bodily transformations in a series of film and photographic works exploring the dark and magical world of Greek mythology. Myths & Metamorphosis revisions these ancient stories, examining the corporeal and carnal nature of the tales. Referring primarily to Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Hunter explores the text as a visual language and uses her body as subject to recast the myths.
The installation comprises of eight photographic works and two films including the mythic figures Hera, whose breast milk formed the Milky Way, Scylla, with ferocious dogs in place of her lower limbs, and Europa who was ravished by a giant bull whilst gathering flowers in a meadow. The stories depicted explore mutations and acts brought about by emotions too extreme for the body to contain, riddled with desire and tragic longing the images are often comic and grotesque. The figurative works explore the embroilment of the natural and the human world with the supernatural and make-believe.
‘sensual and disturbing; beautiful yet grotesque’ Total Theatre Magazine |
