Asphodel Stephen Cornell

Stephen Cornell’s first solo exhibition for over five years explores themes of desire, unrequited love and rebirth, drawing on influences as diverse as Andy Warhol and the poets Olivier Larronde and Dionysios Solomos. Cornell investigates these ideas through large-scale paintings of jam doughnuts and over-sized sculptures of hyacinths, irises and foxgloves. The exhibition is the latest in a series of Hiscox Art Projects, supporting contemporary emerging artists.

Cornell’s glossy renderings of large doughnuts, using real sugar on their surface, appear mouth-wateringly desirable. They promise much in their delicious taste and hidden jam centre a momentary pleasure with no long-term benefits. Cornell signals the emptiness of modern desire through an icon of mass consumerism which promises satisfaction, but leaves us craving more. Cornell’s repetition of the doughnut image across the canvas reinforces their manufactured origins, brought to life by Cornell’s visceral painting techniques.

Spring flowers including hyacinths made of painted plaster signal re-birth, resurrection and spring. They are also phallic symbols heralding desire and erotic love. According to Greek myth, Hyacinthus was a beautiful youth loved by Apollo. He was accidentally killed by a discus thrown by the god and from his blood sprang a flower that was named for him. At the bottom of the plant sculptures, amongst the soil, Cornell has placed thermometers, indicating the earth warming up ready for spring. Cornell often chooses plants whose extracts have medicinal properties and healing powers.

The exhibition is named after the asphodel plant, a member of the lily family, which in Greek mythology grew in Elysium, a place of bliss in the after life which Cornell equates with all consuming love.

The exhibition opened to the public from 10th February to 12th April 2006 at Hiscox.