Naiads of the New World
The classically educated Europeans who mapped the New World were likely familiar with the river nymphs of Greek mythology. These ink drawings of naiads on reproduction North American colonial maps mark the passage from millennia of “uncharted territory” to the eradication of indigenous cultures, and extensive environmental changes, that began during the European exploration and settlement of the New World. Their bodies passively incorporate waterways renamed by the colonizing peoples.
Ink and pencil on archival reproductions of North American colonial era maps, sizes variable, 2018-2019
