hekate’s grove

karen heagle, Elizabeth insogna and kay turner

A fitting presentation for the season of the witch, "Hekate’s Grove" is a three-person exhibition featuring Karen Heagle (painter), Elizabeth Insogna (sculptor) and Kay Turner (performer and folklorist). The installation of works and performances unfold the archetype of Hekate for twenty-first century contemplation and inspiration from her symbolic access point as Greek underworld deity, to one which unveils other occult dimensions in fuller detail and focus. These include her dissolution of barriers between the animal and human realm, her connection to older chthonic forms of the goddess, and her widely regarded agency as an autonomous deity who serves no master, not even Zeus, yet is a profoundly compassionate provider and caretaker.

Insogna’s ceramic sculpture two-part installation, “The Peristyle” and “The Well (Hekate’s Cave),” introduces works ranging in form from the semi-abstract to the hybrid and making reference to wings, serpents, living flames, plant-animal forms, and the Goddess as Other. Embedded with carved magical symbols, the sculptures are in correspondence with the goddess through an esoteric visual language as well as through layers of glaze and interference overlay.

Heagle’s large scale paintings of symbolic wild creatures depict acts of predation suggesting the various guises of Hekate, the enchantment of corpses and decay, the liminal spaces between eros and death, and ecstatic transformations at the crossroads. The blunt physicality of paint handling and charged colors accented with gold leaf reveal Hekate’s power to override the divide between life and death.

Turner’s task is activation of the installation through participatory ritual and performance, giving audience initiates a sense of Hekate’s’ singular vitality and energizing liminality. Her symbol-filled toolkit of epithets, torches, crossroads, keys, detritus, ghosts, gold, fire, and food offerings is employed to provide access to the threshold of opposition and resolution where she sits in queer defiance of restrictive binaries and normative assumptions.

Click here to read a review of Hekate’s Grove from The Brooklyn Rail.

program schedule:

Saturday, Oct. 22, 6-8pm: Opening Reception. The artists offer a brief ritual at 7pm to open the Grove.

Sunday October 30, 3-5pm: "A Hekate Supper," Part 1 (Abjection/Separation). Kay Turner activates the Grove, performing with invited artists and welcoming audience participation.

Thursday, Nov. 3, 6:30-8:30pm: "Goddess Help Us: Why Art and the Goddess Matter Now". A panel discussion and Q&A with audience engagement. Panelists include Leah DeVun, Amy Hale, Elizabeth Insogna, Karen Heagle, and Kay Turner.

Sunday Nov. 6, 3-5pm: "A Hekate Supper," Part 2 (Ecstasy/Return). Kay Turner celebrates the Grove by performing with invited artists and welcoming audience participation.

Sunday Nov. 20, 3-5pm: Closing Reception. The artists offer a brief ritual at 5pm to close the Grove.

Hekate’s Grove Soundscape: “Urging Commingling” (2022)
Sound Design: Kay Turner and Terry Dame
Sound Engineer: Terry Dame
Music: Jenny Hoyston “Burn It All Down” from the album Hold On, Loosely, 2019. Publisher: Great Hereafter Music
Recitation of Hekate’s Epithets:
Voices: Kay Turner and Elizabeth Insogna
Greek translation: Elizabeth Insogna
Ambient Sound:
Terry Dame’s Handy Hag Bees (processed by Terry Dame)
NASA Data Sonification Project: Chandra Deep Field-South (X-Ray)
Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Karen Heagle is a painter whose work reflects autobiographical symbolism, thematically focused on wildlife subjects, memento mori, feminism, and queer identity. She has exhibited widely in New York City, including most recently her 7th solo exhibition at Sargent’s Daughters in 2019. Her work is in MOMA’s Contemporary Drawing Collection. She holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Elizabeth Insogna creates ceramic sculptures, vessels, and installations centered within the symbolic and metaphysical as related to the divine feminine and ancient magic. Past solo exhibitions include Tracing the Spirit at RAR gallery in Berlin and Psyche’s Reason in NYC as well as a two person show, Doesn’t Hold Water at Underdonk. She has participated in group exhibitions at The Abrons Art Center, The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, and The National Arts Club. Her work has been featured in Artsy, Magic Praxis, Huffington Post, Abraxas Journal, and Hyperallergic. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Kay Turner is an artist and scholar working across disciplines including performance, writing, music, and folklore. Since 2012 Turner's performance works and writing have revolved around an exploration of the witch figure in folklore and history. Her books include What a Witch: Before and After, with Zini Lardieri (2021); Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms, with Pauline Greenhill (2012) and Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women's Altars (1999). She taught for 20 years in the Performance Studies Department at NYU and is a past president of the American Folklore Society. Turner lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Austin, TX.

Additional collaborating artists: Terry Dame (sound); Jenny Hoyston (music); Leigh Klonsky (design); and Danielle Kipnis, Emily LaRochelle, and Sarazina Stein (dance)

GALLERY HOURS:

Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6pm, or by appointment. Please email hanne@fivemyles.org, or call 718-783-4438.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

FiveMyles is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Laurie Cumbo, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, the Perlemeter Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Joseph Robert Foundation, and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.