Creation Date
2014
Preview
Medium
slides and Plexiglas®
Rights
© Karen Lilly, 2014.
COinS
2014
slides and Plexiglas®
© Karen Lilly, 2014.
Artist Statement
This body of work re-contextualizes select themes and characters of Greek mythology. There are two ways in which these myths are re-contextualized. The first method lifts characters from their place in mythology and reimagines them as everyday people living their lives in the modern world. The second method takes real people from our time and transforms them into mythological personas. With this artwork, a teenage boy on a European vacation becomes Odysseus on an adventurous voyage to strange lands and prostitutes become our version of the deadly and beautiful sirens. Hercules is made into a middle-aged man who has let himself go and Oedipus is a lonely widower. The environment of the modern Echo shows her obsession with her Narcissus.
Through the meshing of timeless ancient myth and modern-day commonalities, this work helps to both elevate everyday people to mythical status and bring revered characters down to a more familiar level. The work I’ve created for this exhibition reflects the celebrity-obsessed nature of our contemporary lives. Anyone can be made into a celebrity or a hero practically overnight, but these hero are far from perfect and can fall from grace.