Lola Flash, “Afua” (2021) in She Sells Seashells at Alice Austen Home (all pictures Alexis Clements/Hyperallergic)
The female determine who emerges from the ocean, or lures others into it, is an everlasting picture in myths throughout cultures. Many individuals know Disney’s happily-ever-after adaptation of The Little Mermaid, however in Hans Christian Andersen’s unique, she doesn’t get the prince ultimately. As an alternative, her physique dissolves into the ocean and her soul joins an all-female spirit world. And lengthy earlier than Anderson’s story, there have been figures like selkies — elusive, stunning creatures who slip out of their seal skins to inhabit land and infrequently have intercourse with people — or the traditional Egyptian goddess Nu, who personifies the primordial waters from which all creation got here, and instructions the ability to carry all of it to a watery finish.
Although the lesbian-centric group exhibition She Sells Seashells on the Alice Austen Home doesn’t immediately handle the mythic, one in every of its works, by Finnish artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, does. These Who Stored the Gentle (2022), a sequence of 10 quick movies, explores tales of girls who stored lighthouses illuminated when the lads who formally bore that obligation couldn’t or wouldn’t perform the duty. Wealthy photographs discover the craggy edges of Norway and Denmark, with stark lighthouses dotting spare landscapes — urgent viewers in opposition to the fundamental actuality of the ocean, the mysteries it continues to carry for people, and its lengthy affiliation with a female power that’s something however coquettish.
Nastja Säde Rönkkö, nonetheless from the video sequence These Who Stored the Gentle (2022)
Lots of the works within the present, curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley, concentrate on the figurative, evoking the liberty of the physique by the ocean — scarcely clothed, outdoors the constructed surroundings, comfortable. Ana Benaroya’s monumental figures in her marker and ink drawing “By the Ocean’s Roar” (2022) name up a few of the glory skilled by these with non-normative, queer, and trans our bodies in locations just like the LGBTQ+ nook of New York’s Riis Seashore; these muscle-bound femmes revel within the feeling of being at play, close to or completely bare, with out judgement. Photographs by Meryl Meisler, Lola Flash, and JEB (Joan E. Biren) convey an identical feeling, as they painting lesbians enjoyable close to the water, kissing, studying, and posing for one another, whether or not within the Seventies or just some years in the past. Ro Robertson’s video set up, “birthbuildshift” (2022), sitting among the many dense Victoriana of the Austen Museum, evokes an “origin of the world” very completely different from that of Gustave Courbet — one wherein the genitalia is just not revealed; as an alternative, coated alternately by moist fabric or rocks, the notorious house between two legs merges with the world round it.
Marguerite Piard, “Leau Saleea Souvent Le Gout des Larmes” (2025)
JEB, “Lazing on the Dock” (1980)
And naturally, there are pictures by Alice Austen, who lived throughout the partitions that now home the Austen Museum, together with a long time spent there together with her life companion, Gertrude Tate. Whereas these accustomed to Austen’s work ought to recognize her personal lesbian figures by the ocean, I notably loved seeing a few of her non-figurative works. A barely obscured moon shines by way of a tree’s darkish silhouette in an undated work, reflecting throughout a big physique of water. It’s simple to think about this as a faraway or mythic scene, but upon shut inspection, you’ll discover a form that resembles the bench encircling the tree sitting on the fringe of her Staten Island property, looking onto New York Harbor. It’s a recent, shocking view of one of many world’s main cities, upon whose salty shores Austen gazed most days of her life. One other placing Austen picture, from 1935, depicts two huge oyster shells, which could possibly be precisely what they’re or a cheeky reference to 2 ladies and their nether areas. Or, in the event you’re inclined towards female sea myths, you may think them as Japan’s ferocious Sazae-oni. (I gained’t spoil it right here, however take a look at the hyperlink.)
If you happen to make the trek to see the present, be sure you spend a while by the shoreline — the grounds are a metropolis park whose hours prolong past the museum’s. And in the event you take the Staten Island Ferry to get there, look out for the Robbins Reef Lighthouse, the place a girl named Katherine Walker stored the sunshine for over three a long time after her husband died, rescuing 50 folks from the waves outdoors her doorstep. And preserve your eye on the water.
Alice Austen, “Night Image Moon Shining Through Tree Branches” (n.d.)
Alexandria Smith, “A Memory Doubled Over in Longing” (2023)
Ana Benaroya, “By the Ocean’s Roar” (2022)
Alice Austen, “Sea Shells” (n.d.)
Set up view of Alice Austen, “Two Big Oyster Shells April 30, 1935” (1935) in She Sells Seashells at Alice Austen Home
Set up view of Ro Robertson, “birthbuildshift” (2022) in She Sells Seashells at Alice Austen Home
View from the porch of the Alice Austen Home
She Sells Seashells continues on the Alice Austen Home Museum (2 Hylan Boulevard, Shore Acres, Staten Island) by way of February 21, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley.
