Ellen Gallagher’s “Ecstatic Draught of Fishes” at Hauser & Wirth London features five new, large scale pieces by the artist known for her multilayered works that merge narratives of water ecosystems, Afrofuturist mythology and music. The selected works allow time for the viewer to be drawn in and familiarize themselves with the universe Gallagher is presenting. Throughout the show, the viewer becomes more adept in Gallagher’s distinct visual language. Her multilayered works encompass oil, watercolor, and collaged paper cut outs. The works exist in the Black Atlantis. Conceived by Drexciya in 1997—a tech duo from Detroit—the Black Atlantis is an underwater world inhabited by the children of enslaved women who were thrown off slave ships during the Middle Passage.

Ellen Gallagher. Watery Ecstatic, 2021. Watercolour, varnish, egg tempera and cut paper on paper 77 ⅝ x 54 ¾ in. Photo: Tony Nathan. © Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

Gallagher is known to spend long spans of time on each work, and frequently revisit them. The exhibition features two new works from a continuing series of works Gallagher began in 2001, “Watery Ecstatic.” These immense pieces immediately transport the viewer into the Black Atlantis. Gallagher’s red and pink hues achieve intense dimensionality, despite the watercolor medium, and the layering of cut out paper evokes ocean bed depths. These pieces feel magnetic and beating with life.

Two works in the show that share the exhibition’s title, one containing a backdrop of notebook paper squares in fleshy and bruised tones. This is layered with palladium leaf figures that ride above an abyss of burnt sienna and orange swirls. The palladium heads in both pieces depict traditional Fang figures from the Bantu people of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon. Gallagher stated she was thinking about the sex life of coral, and coral spawn when making these.

Ellen Gallagher. Ecstatic Draught Of Fishes, 2021. Oil, palladium leaf and canvas. 98 x 79 ½ x 1 ⅝ in. Photo: Tony Nathan. © Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

“Ecstatic Draught of Fishes” is an apt title for the monumental, vast world Gallagher creates, full of pain. The artists’ discipline of repetition, with its thoroughness and meditativeness, enables a preliminary transportation to Gallagher’s imagined terrains in this exhibition. However, delving into Gallagher’s influences and symbolic content allows a further appreciation for the complexity of her work.