Greek Myths, 2021
Chris Ofili
Victoria Miro
Prologue to Troy, 1974
Romare Bearden
RoGallery
Originating around 3,000 years ago, The Odyssey remains one of the most influential works of literature ever. This ancient Greek epic poem recounts the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his perilous 10-year journey home following the Trojan War, encountering man-eating monsters, vengeful gods, and countless temptations. Despite its fantastical nature, the poem has an enduring appeal today, with a highly anticipated film adaptation from Christopher Nolan bringing Homer’s epic back into public conversation.
After all, the epic explores universal human concerns such as displacement, identity, fate, free will, resilience, and the search for home. These themes have made The Odyssey a continual source of inspiration for artists across centuries, as it remains a powerful metaphor for the human search for meaning, purpose, and home. Here are five contemporary artworks that engage with Homer’s enduring epic.
Romare Bearden
“A Black Odyssey,” 1977
Home to Ithaca, from the Odysseus Series, 1979
Romare Bearden
Heritage Auctions
“A Black Odyssey” is one of Romare Bearden’s most ambitious and comprehensive bodies of work. Created in 1977, the series consists of 20 collages inspired by Homer’s epic tale, demonstrating Bearden’s lifelong interest in journeys, migration, and the search for home. Here, Bearden stretched the concept of collage by connecting different histories and experiences, creating what he described as a “global cultural collage.” By reimagining the myth with a cast of entirely Black figures in Benin, with Odysseus as an African hero, Bearden illuminates the connection between the ancient longing for home and the modern African American experience, drawing on his own experience of the Great Migration and the wider legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Speaking of his series, the artist explained: “It is universal. So if a child in Benin or in Louisiana…sees my paintings of Odysseus, he can understand the myth better.”
Though he remains faithful to the spirit of the story, Bearden takes certain artistic liberties in his interpretation. In Home to Ithaca (1977), geometric buildings line a harbor (presumably Ithaca, Odysseus’s long-sought destination) as a sailboat approaches. In The Odyssey, Homer relays that Odysseus was asleep on his ship’s deck when his vessel sailed into Ithaca’s harbor, whereas Bearden instead depicts him standing proudly atop the ship’s bow, highlighting the endurance and determination that has carried him through his long journey. Rather than presenting the voyage as a heroic conquest, as in the original epic, Bearden’s interpretation focuses on the resilience of the human spirit through adversity, reflecting his belief that “Life is going to triumph somehow.”
Paul Chan
La Baigneur 7 (Teenyelemachus), 2018
Contemporary multimedia artist Paul Chan was struck by the Greek word polytropos which appears in The Odyssey’s opening line. It’s used to describe Odysseus, and translates as “infinitely cunning” adaptable, or resourceful. In his essay “Odysseus as Artist” (2017), Chan argues that these qualities are essential not only to Odysseus but also to the role of the artist in contemporary society. This idea became the foundation for Chan’s 2018 exhibition “Odysseus and the Bathers” at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, where he explored how creativity can find new paths when traditional methods become limiting.
Inspired by Odysseus’s ability to “cheat his own fate,” Chan developed kinetic nylon sculptures. In one, an inflatable, human-like figure stands bent forward at the waist, weighed down by a brightly colored towel hanging from its clasped arms. Electrical cords plugged into casual shoes snake across the floor in various directions, creating a disparate but connected network. As air fills the figure, it jerks and strains until it finally becomes fully upright; then, the ridges on its back disturb the airflow, causing the figure to collapse. Animated by air from specifically modified industrial fans, the artist governs the figures’ movements by directing airflow to the internal structure of the bodies, reflecting how individuals are at the mercy of external forces.
The work’s title, La Baigneur 7 (Teenyelemachus) (2018), playfully alludes to Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, a play on words referencing his neons’ glitchy movements. This repeated cycle of the figure continuously attempting—and failing—to remain standing represents Telemachus’s rising up in the face of challenges owing to the absence of his father.
Chris Ofili
Kiss (Odysseus & Calypso), 2019
Chris Ofili was inspired by The Odyssey after hearing the opening of Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation read aloud by his friend, the curator Okwui Enwezor, in 2018. The phrase “a complicated man” struck a chord, leading him to see Odysseus as a restless and adventurous figure. Its vivid descriptions inspired Ofili to create a series of paintings and drawings based on the poem for his “Dangerous Liaisons” exhibition at David Zwirner in 2019.
Ofili’s series reinterprets the ancient epic through a contemporary and Caribbean lens: Calypso, for instance, is reimagined as a mermaid, influenced in part by the music of Trinidad, where he has lived since 2005. In Kiss (Odysseus & Calypso) (2019), the pair are shown in a sensual underwater embrace. Odysseus is depicted with dark skin and coiled hair, while Calypso appears as a luminous figure, a nod to Homer’s descriptions of “lustrous Calypso” and the “nymph with lovely braids.” Layered with watercolor, charcoal, oil pastel, graphite, and the artist’s signature gold leaf, the work shimmers with kaleidoscopic richness. The vibrant colors and swirling arabesque forms envelop the figures, creating a lush, otherworldly realm that evokes the allure of the myth.
Ellen Gallagher
Ecstatic Draught of Fishes, 2020
Ellen Gallagher became particularly interested in The Odyssey in the 1990s. She was drawn to the concept of nostos—the Greek word for “homecoming” or “return”—which first appears in the epic and gave rise to the English word nostalgia. The complexity of the idea resonated with the artist; it is not simply about returning home, but also about the journey.
This idea resonates with Gallagher’s own practice, inspired by the Afrofuturist myth of Drexciya—an imagined underwater civilization descended from enslaved Africans thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade. Gallagher’s multilayered mixed-media painting Ecstatic Draught of Fishes (2020) (also the title of a 2021 exhibition at Hauser & Wirth) connects to The Odyssey through its exploration of displacement and the search for home.
Gallagher creates a submerged world populated by silver-gray figures, reminiscent of sculptures by the Central African Fang culture. In small clusters, the figures drift along braided, root-like strands that weave horizontally across the composition against a shimmering, mottled surface made up of layers of collaged penmanship paper, paint, and metallic palladium leaf. By reimagining the Atlantic Ocean, Gallagher transforms the epic journey of The Odyssey into a Black Atlantic narrative. Exploring what it means to navigate identity, memory, and belonging across time and space, she offers an alternative mythology encompassing both survival and homecoming.
SUPERFLEX
Super Kello, 2026
Named after the Finnish word for bell, Super Kello (2026) is a bell-shaped stone sculpture by the Copenhagen-based group SUPERFLEX. Located in the harbor of Kello in Haukipudas, Finland, the pink marble structure faces out to sea like a lighthouse, forging a connection between the human community on land and the marine life below the water. Denmark is one of the flattest countries in the world, and SUPERFLEX’s work acknowledges the rising sea levels of a rapidly changing climate. Indeed, in an interview the group noted that any permanent public art commission may no longer be designed for humans, but for fish. With this in mind, the sculpture is made from modular building blocks known as “fish cubes” developed in collaboration with KWY studio, which maximize the surface area of a cube, creating habitable spaces for marine life.
The artwork also invites viewers to reflect on different experiences of time. The work will broadcast Pentti Saarikoski’s Finnish translation of The Odyssey, read by local fisherwoman Elina Halonen, who will read one word per hour over the course of 10 years. By stretching the duration of the artwork over a decade, it invites visitors to slow down and experience time differently while referencing long-term, difficult-to-comprehend processes such as climate change. Just as Odysseus spent years journeying across the sea, the drawn-out, meditative narration also mirrors the duration of Odysseus’s 10-year voyage home.
