ArtThrob: Mutants, Matronae and Monsters

Published 03 October 2024 in Press

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There is a painting of three women. Are they The Fates? The Norns? The Weird Sisters? Matronae? Tridevi? The longer I look at it, the more it seems to reimagine William Blake’s engraving 'Europe supported by Africa and America' (1796). But these are faceless allegories, cropped just below the chest, and backdropped by a Giverny-green. They are pissing. Or perhaps it is a ray of light that shines from their urethrae. The colour is piss-yellow either way. Vulgar, you might say. I like to think of it a purification rite, after a Barbara McCullough film I saw recently at the AVA, in which Yolanda Vidato pisses ritually on the rubble of Watts. A crude baptism. The artist who made this work, Pélagie Gbaguidi, calls it an “archaeology of freedom.” The painting is called 'Le jour se lève', which in French means “the day awakens.” It is also called 'The Mutants'.