On Sappho, Helen and Aphrodite, 2022

Sherry Wiggins embodies the Greek poetess Sappho, Helen of Troy and the goddess Aphrodite in several series of performative photographs as part of the HEROINES project, a collaboration with photographer Luís Branco. These ancient Greek female figures have been connected in our minds and mythos as emblematic of female desire, carnal beauty and the dangerous powers of love and sex.

Wiggins performs as the great poetess Sappho in the splendor of fall leaves with her golden laurel crown in the image Sappho’s Crown. In the image Sappho the Misunderstood, Sappho / Wiggins stands in the dark night, her arms crossed in defiance. Did she love men? Did she love women? And who really cares?

Wiggins performs as Helen of Troy, wet and bedraggled (and rightfully depressed) after ten years of the Trojan War, in the image Helen After Troy. In the diptych Helen’s Eidolon I and II, the phantom figure of Helen appears through a gray mist. According to one ancient myth, it was Helen’s ghost, or eidolon, who spent ten years captive in the embattled city of Troy.

Wiggins also embodies the Greek goddess of love and sex, Aphrodite, in a bed of roses with the golden apple in her hand in the diptych Aphrodite with Roses I and II.

This collection of images of these ancient heroines was exhibited at Michael Warren Contemporary in 2023. The exhibition included printed excerpts from several of Sappho’s poems alongside the performative portraits of these iconic women. Curator and writer Cydney Payton discusses this body of work, the intent and process, with Wiggins in the pdf linked below: “In Conversation—Cydney Payton and Sherry Wiggins.”

(photography by Luís Branco, installation shots by Robert Kittila)

Download the PDF "In Conversations—Cydney Payton and Sherry Wiggins" here.