Teodora Axente’s Transylvanian fantasies
At the opening of her recent London show, Romanian artist Teodora Axente wore a dress she had stitched herself for the occasion: a sheer chiffon number, with three sleeves. The extra limb wasn’t mere whimsy, but a reference to Saint John of Damascus, who, accused of treachery, had his right hand cut off and then, in answer to his prayers, reinstated. This eighth-century miracle was first recorded in an Eastern Orthodox icon of Mary, mother of Jesus, featuring a third silver hand. It’s now the inspiration for Trihirusa (2025), one of Axente’s startlingly surreal neo-baroque paintings, first exhibited this autumn at Gallery Rosenfeld in Fitzrovia, and now reinstalled at the Santa Maria della Scala museum in Siena. The series brings together Orthodox iconography and a cast of part-human, part-insect characters conjured from her own imagination. It’s both unsettling and alluring, laden with painterly details – from swatches of brocade to plates of juicy figs and pomegranates, plus a pair of scissors that morphs into a silvery fish.