Nicolette Mishkan
Lethe's Harem, 2024-2025
Oil on linen
48 x 60 in121.9 x 152.4 cm
What if death were just a blackout between this life and the next? With its memories wiped clean in a cycle of spiritual cleansing, your soul might carry only faint notions of who you once were, like a SIM card with a brand new hippocampus. Such is the gist of the River Lethe, an underworld tributary from ancient Greek mythology whose waters wash away all remembrance of one’s existence. In Lethe’s Tavern, the fabled Greek river becomes a watering hole where painter Nicolette Mishkan’s ego goes to slosh around, bifurcate, and eventually sing its swan song. Informed equally by Sufi mysticism wherein wine is used to symbolize the intoxicating effects of divine love, she annihilates her sense of individuality by eliminating any distinction between herself and others. Together, these figures revel in the ultimate surrender to their fate, a resplendent transcendence into the unknown where who she once was lies buried without even an epitaph. The following interview took place at Megan Mulrooney on the occasion of the exhibition’s closing and has been edited for length. Read more.
