Styx
In classical Greek mythology, Styx is a water goddess; an Oceanid, a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Afterworld. She is the daughter of Darkness and the Night, and mother of Strength and Victory. Her river form symbolises the boundary between the Earth and the Afterlife. In this exhibition the deity materialises in two forms. Firstly, as an immersive labyrinth installation, exploring the cavities of the body and the ambiguous duality of internal and external space and protective environments. Secondly, the deity takes on a human form via one the oldest techniques of stage illusion.
“‘Mythology’ because it can mean allegory, legend, wisdom, fabulous narration and beliefs that are traditional, collective, particular and cultural, is itself a paradox. ‘Mythology’ cloaks truth in fiction and fiction in truth. This book sheds light on mythology as hued paradoxically blue. My writing makes good blue’s duplicity as the hue of mythology.” Carol Mavor – Blue Mythologies (2013)
The work was co-commissioned by Photoworks & Ballarat International Foto Biennale, and shown at National Center for Photography in Ballarat, Australia from August 2021 – January 2022.
Alix Marie
Alix Marie (b.1989 in Bobigny) is a French multidisciplinary artist, working mostly across the mediums of photography, sculpture and installation.
She graduated from Central Saint Martins College, London, in 2011 with a first class honours degree in fine art and later completed an MA in photography at the Royal College of Art, London.
Her work explores our relationship to bodies and their representation, through processes of objectification, fragmentation, magnification and accumulation. She has demonstrated a particular interest in addressing gender stereotypes through a visceral and genuine approach while mixing mythological references with autobiographical elements.
In 2019 she was awarded the Vic Odden Award by the Royal Photographic Society for a notable achievement in the art of photography by an artist aged 35 or under.
In 2021 she presented her new body of work Styx at the National Center of Photography in Ballarat, Australia and is included in the “Fifty Pioneers Defining Photography for the Twenty-First Century” of Charlotte Jansen’s book Photography Now published by Tate and Octopus publishing.
Recent exhibitions include: Sorsi Di Sale, Ncontemporary, Milan (solo, 2022), Raw, Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, (2022), Styx, National Center for Photography, Ballarat (solo, 2021), Sucer la nuit, Musée des beaux-arts, Le Locle (solo, 2019).
