Telling Stories: Heroine Mythology Recast - Drawings by Wendy Sharpe & Anita Taylor
Telling Stories: Heroine Mythology Recast - Drawings by Wendy Sharpe & Anita Taylor will launch at Drawing Projects UK on International Women’s Day - Saturday 8 March from 4-6pm, and is open by appointment and during events until Saturday 19 April 2025.
Telling Stories, is a collaboration between Anita Taylor (UK), and Wendy Sharpe (Australia), figurative artists with a strong interest in drawing. Each has worked on mythological themes in the past, as well as representing images of contemporary female subjects.
The exhibition comprises 25 works on paper by each artist that re-imagine women from classical mythology. The stories of these mythological figures are deeply rooted in western culture, yet challenge familiar depictions and their concepts of femininity. In recent years writers, such as Madeline Miller and Margaret Atwood, have been adapting and retelling classical mythology from a female perspective, including Miller’s Circe and Atwood’s The Penelopiad. These narratives give us many different interpretations of female archetypes seen through a contemporary lens. Extraordinary female characters, no longer seen as binary stereotypes, are shown as complex human beings - not simply as submissive, pure evil, a trophy, or symbolic figure. They are taken away from the margins, and placed centre stage. Sharpe and Taylor do the same.
Launched on International Women’s Day on Saturday 8 March 2025, the exhibition is designed to tour within the UK and Australia. The exhibition is open by appointment, please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call us on 0749 3231476 to arrange to visit. Arthus Coffee is open daily, and during this time you can seem some of the works.
Wendy Sharpe AM is one of Australia's most acclaimed and awarded artists. She lives in Sydney and Paris. She has won an extensive list of prizes, residencies and scholarships, including the: Archibald Prize, Sulman Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Award, Galleen Art Prize, Adelaide Perry Art Prize, Gold Award, and many more. She has had many international artists' residencies in places and diverse as Antarctica, China and Egypt. In Australia, she has been an artist-in-residence with the Australian Ballet and Opera Australia amongst others. Sharpe received a commission by the Australian War Memorial as an Official War Artist, the first woman since WWII. She has painted major public murals, which include the Olympic pool size paintings at Cook and Philip Park Aquatic Centre in Sydney. She was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia Medal for Service to the Visual Arts. In 2024, she had a major solo exhibition, Spellbound, at the Art Gallery of NSW. Sharpe has held over 70 solo exhibitions around Australia and internationally.
Anita Taylor is an award-winning artist who studied at the Royal College of Art (1985-87) and was Artist-in-Residence at Durham Cathedral 1987-88]; Cheltenham Fellow in Painting [1988-89]; Artist-in-Residence, NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service & National Art School in Sydney, Australia [2004]. Recent solo exhibitions include: Moonraker, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul, Türkiye (2024-25); Witness, Young Gallery, Salisbury [2018]; DRAWN, The Customs House, South Shields [2017]; William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney [2014]; The Drawing Room, Sydney [2011]; Peter Pinson Gallery, Sydney [2009]; The Drawing Gallery [2009, 2004]. Recent group shows include Kazr Izleri / Lines of Site, first presented in Istanbul and touring to Dundee, Barcelona and Aksaray [2022], for which she made a major series of large drawings in response to the Neolithic settlement of Asikli Höyük in Central Anatolia as part of an EU-funded project. Recent group exhibitions: The Global Centre for Drawing, Langford120, Melbourne [2018, 2013, 2011]; Jerwood Gallery, Hastings [2019, 2016, 2014]; Victoria & Albert Museum [2009]. Awards include the Malvern Award for Drawing [1993]; Drawing Award, Hunting Art Prize [1999]; First Prize, Hunting Art Prize [2000]. She is founding Director of the annual Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition (since 1994), a Professor of Fine Art (since 2002) and is currently Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee (since 2019).
