BETT GALLERY HOBART

+61 3 6231 6511

Gallery News 2008

Heather B. Swann
Gates of Hell
Degraves Place, Melbourne

Ancient fear for the modern world.

The multi-headed dog monster Cerberus protects the entrance of Hades, the classical underworld. Swann's sculpture stands guard at the Degraves Place entrance to the Flinders Street pedestrian underpass.

Gates of Hell has its origin both in the stories of Greek and Roman mythology, of Hercules and Orpheus, and in the forms of French Romanesque sculpture, with its heraldic, symbolic and decorative beasts and its Last Judgement hell mouths. 

More important than these cultural references, however, is the work's primitive emotion, its expression of angry threat. Cerberus's biting, barking heads are designed to frighten us. The artist is challenging our complacency and lethargy. She wants us to think about (and act against) the hellishness of now, the purgatories and punishments of the contemporary world.

"No one believes in heaven and hell anymore. Here on earth we have it all." (Heather B. Swann)

Gates of Hell is one of the 2007 Melbourne City Council's Laneway Commissions on view until 9 March 2008. (Images are provided by the Melbourne City Council, photography by Greg Sims)

Click here to view Heather B. Swann's pages

Gates of Hell
(installation views)