Artwork Description
Swoon – Thalassa
Dimensions: 77 x 30 x 1″ finished size / 77 x 30 x 1″
Year: 2020
Medium: Silkscreen with hand painted acrylic gouache colors on paper mounted to wooden door
Caledonia Curry, whose work appears under the name Swoon, is a Brooklyn-based artist and is widely known as the first woman to gain large-scale recognition in the male-dominated world of street art. Callie took to the streets of New York while attending the Pratt Institute of Art in 1999, pasting her paper portraits to the sides of buildings with the goal of making art and the public space of the city more accessible.
Thalassa was the primeval spirit of the sea, whose name may be of Pre-Greek origin. Swoon’s first use of this subject, “Thalassa,”was originally commissioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art. “It was just a few months after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” the artist says. “I’m a Floridian, and very much an ocean person. I was shocked at how much I grieved that spill.”
For succor, she turned to the primordial Greek goddess of the sea, who in her hands rises from the waters with a triumphant look on her face.