“Too close to herself, entangled in her own enigma, [woman] could not step back.” - Maryanne Doane

In ‘Antidote’, Ellen May Anderson’s painting contests the traditionally masculine view of the sublime as a relational experience between oneself and a terrifying world. Anderson instead imagines a feminine sublime, in which the body is the site of both the experience of oneself and of the terrifying world. Painted on wood panels, found images are rendered with disconcerting clarity, forcing their own absurd image of modern procedural bodily enhancement and gender performance, inviting the viewer to reconcile visual pleasure with bodily discomfort. As a result, the gap between projection and reality and viewer and image are closed, as Anderson presents a sublime where one feels ill at ease within their own physicality. A horror fuelled by the viewer’s understanding that this feeling lies unresolved, as one perpetually seeks but never gains bodily satisfaction.

This exhibition took place in May 2026.

Instagram: @ellenmayanderson