Styx, 2021
145 x 145cm, Artificial Intelligence
Best known, the river Styx is the principal river of Hades, circling the Underworld seven times thus separating it from the land of the living. The Styx flowed out of Oceanus, the great river of the world. In Greek, the word Styx means to hate or abhor, and it was named after the nymph of the river, a daughter of the Titans; Oceanus and Tethys. She was said to live at the entrance of Hades, in a “lofty grotto supported by silver columns.”
The waters of the Styx is where Achilles was dipped by his mother Thetis, endeavoring to make him immortal; she famously forgot one of his heels. Cereberus, a monstrous dog with multiple heads and the tail of a serpent, waits on the further side of the Styx where Charon lands with the shades of the departed.
Homer called Styx “the dread river of oath.” Zeus used a golden jug of water from the Styx to settle disputes among the gods. If a god swore falsely by the water he would be deprived of nectar and ambrosia for a year and banished from the company of other gods for nine years.
