SAVED BY DROWNING (SICILIAN FOUNTAIN 2)

The subject of Georgia Hayes’ paintings are friends, animals and objects, particularly sculptures and artefacts from other eras and cultures, that have made a direct visual or emotional impact on her. Her recent paintings have drawn particularly on Western, Middle Eastern and Ancient Egyptian cultures. The paint, colour and form of the source material dictates how her work evolves with Hayes aiming to paint with a freedom and fluidity that allows for the unpredictable. ‘SAVED BY DROWNING (SICILIAN FOUNTAIN 2)’ is the second painting in a series of three inspired by drawings Hayes made of a fountain in Ortigia in South East Sicily. The figures featured in the fountain is Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting, childbirth and the wilderness, and Arethusa, the chaste river nymph. In the original myth, Arethusa, while bathing in a cool river, was observed by the river god, Alpheus, who fell in love with her. Fleeing Alpheus, Arethusa sought the protection of Artemis who transformed her into a spring, which now bears her name in Ortigia. Hayes uses vivid colours and striking forms to reinterpret the story, creating a simplified graphic language to re-interpret the eroticism and fantastic nature of the original story.

Catherine Antoni