Painted with fluid brushstrokes, a Cantonese woman reclines on a bed of soft blues, strands of her dark hair melting into a plump white pillow. Are her eyes open or closed? It’s hard to tell, as she’s been abstracted into ethereal life by Elaine Woo MacGregor. Unconcerned with the viewer’s gaze, she is instead lost in her own inner world.

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The subject is 90s singer Faye Wong, who gained fame during Hong Kong’s pop heyday and has since become a muse to many. Today, this term carries connotations of a passive, female model at the mercy of a great male artist; it has been used unfairly by male critics and artists to downplay women’s contributions, while some feminists have called for it to be canceled.

However, in ancient Greece, the muses were nine divine and powerful goddesses of the arts and sciences. Sisters Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope were invoked by poets, musicians, makers and thinkers for creative inspiration and ideas.

For Urania’s Love–Shanghai Flâneuse (2024), Woo MacGregor has drawn on this source imagery, reimagining Wong as Urania, the muse of astrology and astronomy, while inserting modernity into her frame. As she has explained, “Urania is typically seen holding a compass and celestial globe, but these items have been replaced by a Vivienne Westwood........

© Observer