The feminine figure who emerges from the sea, or lures others into it, is an enduring image in myths across cultures. Many people know Disney’s happily-ever-after adaptation of The Little Mermaid, but in Hans Christian Andersen’s original, she doesn’t get the prince in the end. Instead, her body dissolves into the sea and her soul joins an all-female spirit world. And long before Anderson’s tale, there were figures like selkies — elusive, beautiful creatures who slip out of their seal skins to inhabit land and occasionally have sex with humans — or the ancient Egyptian goddess Nu, who personifies the primordial waters from which all creation came, and commands the power to bring it all to a watery end.
Though the lesbian-centric group exhibition She Sells Seashells at the Alice Austen House doesn’t directly address the mythic, one of its works, by Finnish artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, does. Those Who Kept the Light (2022), a series of 10 short videos, explores stories of women who kept lighthouses illuminated when the men who officially bore that obligation could not or would not carry out the task. Rich images explore the craggy edges of Norway and Denmark, with stark lighthouses dotting spare landscapes — pressing viewers against the elemental reality of the sea, the mysteries it continues to hold for humans, and its long association with a feminine force that is anything but coquettish.
Many of the works in the show, curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley, focus on the figurative, evoking the freedom of the body by the sea — scarcely clothed, outside the built environment, at ease. Ana Benaroya’s monumental figures in her marker and ink drawing “By the Ocean’s Roar” (2022) call up some of the glory experienced by those with non-normative, queer, and trans bodies in places like the LGBTQ+ corner of New York’s Riis Beach; these muscle-bound femmes revel in the feeling of being at play, near or totally naked, without judgement. Photos by Meryl Meisler, Lola Flash, and JEB (Joan E. Biren) convey a similar feeling, as they portray lesbians relaxing near the water, kissing, reading, and posing for each other, whether in the 1970s or just a few years ago. Ro Robertson’s video installation, “birthbuildshift” (2022), sitting among the dense Victoriana of the Austen Museum, evokes an “origin of the world” very different from that of Gustave Courbet — one in which the genitalia is not revealed; instead, covered alternately by wet cloth or rocks, the infamous space between two legs merges with the world around it.
And of course, there are photos by Alice Austen, who lived within the walls that now house the Austen Museum, including decades spent there with her life partner, Gertrude Tate. While those familiar with Austen’s work should appreciate her own lesbian figures by the sea, I particularly enjoyed seeing some of her non-figurative works. A slightly obscured moon shines through a tree’s dark silhouette in an undated work, reflecting across a large body of water. It’s easy to imagine this as a faraway or mythic scene, yet upon close inspection, you’ll notice a shape that resembles the bench encircling the tree sitting at the edge of her Staten Island property, looking out onto New York Harbor. It’s a fresh, surprising view of one of the world’s major cities, upon whose salty shores Austen gazed most days of her life. Another striking Austen image, from 1935, depicts two massive oyster shells, which could be exactly what they are or a cheeky reference to two women and their nether regions. Or, if you’re inclined toward feminine sea myths, you might imagine them as Japan’s ferocious Sazae-oni. (I won’t spoil it here, but check out the link.)
If you make the trek to see the show, be sure to spend some time by the shoreline — the grounds are a city park whose hours extend beyond the museum’s. And if you take the Staten Island Ferry to get there, look out for the Robbins Reef Lighthouse, where a woman named Katherine Walker kept the light for over three decades after her husband died, rescuing 50 people from the waves outside her doorstep. And keep your eye on the water.
She Sells Seashells continues at the Alice Austen House Museum (2 Hylan Boulevard, Shore Acres, Staten Island) through February 21, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley.
