The Naming: Cora

Nicole Rose Gelormino

Cora, 2020

oil on canvas, 36 x 48”

In a gesture of defeat, repose and longing Cora’s body and hair spill over a gray saw horse. Only her featureless head and slick hair fall onto the pale yellow disc like a spotlight. Her body is composed of bulbous warts inspired by the famous Peruvian super potato. Her bright green, brown and red tail is inspired by the velvety bean pods of mucuna pruriens, a medicinal plant that grows in my ancestral lands of South and Southeast Asia, is an aphrodisiac and antivenom that has been used to treat a broad range of ailments for centuries. According to ancient Greek, Gaelic and Spanish languages, Cora is a maiden, a mermaid, a queen of the underworld and a puppet.