/ This blog is the English version of the blog &review; for the Chinese blog, please click on the link below )：Jesse Mockrin: Echo – A Review
“Reworking familiar imagery is just my way of giving history a second look,” reads the wall text that welcomes visitors into the newest exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Currently on display until , acclaimed American painter Jesse Mockrin’s exhibition, Echo, features seventeen new large-scale paintings and eight drawings that radically re-envision female figures from historical, mythological, and biblical stories often depicted in 16th– and 17th-century Baroque paintings.
The exhibition propels these female figures into the foreground and reinterprets their mythological, historical, and biblical narratives through Mockrin‘s contemporary, feminist lens. The artwork draws on multiple themes, such as the depiction of gender-based violence and cruelty towards women in art, power, feminine resilience, and bodily autonomy. The artwork encourages viewers to reflect on questions such as, who has to suffer or die for the choices and consequences of men? and how far have we— as a human race— really come in terms of women’s rights over their own bodies since the 16th century?
On Wednesday, , Fashion Ecstasy attended the media-only preview and guided tour of Echo, led by both Jesse Mockrin and Adam Levine Harris, Associate Curator of the AGO’s European Art Collection. Together, they led the small group throughout the Philip B. Lind Galleries (right next to the European Art galleries) and discussed the works in greater detail.
The exhibition marks two milestones for Mockrin. The first milestone is that this is her first solo exhibition in a museum. The second is that this is the first time a contemporary artist has had her art installed next to the AGO’s European Art collection, since her exhibition was inspired by the works in the AGO’s collection.
Highlights from the Exhibition and Guided Tour
The Fate of The Female Figure
The tour kicked off with the first of seventeen large-scale paintings, entitled “Only Sound Remains (2025).” This massive oil on canvas depicts Echo, the nymph from the tragic Greek mythological story. In the story, Echo was ordered by Zeus to lie and cover for him while he fulfilled his carnal desires. Upon discovering that Echo was abetting Zeus in his affairs, Hera cursed Echo to only repeat the words of others. She later fell in unrequited love with Narcissus, who painfully rejected her. Then she faded away until only her voice remained.
In Only Sound Remains (2025), the female figure representing Echo is seen floating against a cold, pitch-black, empty backdrop, with a barely visible expression on her face. The piece perfectly encapsulated the exhibition‘s exploration of the embedded misogyny in Greco-Roman mythologies. Echo was reduced to a mere plaything who got caught up in the dangerous sexual exploits of a dangerous Greek god, and suffered gravely because of Zeus’ actions. While discussing the painting with the group, Mockrin said, “Echo is also a reference to the way these stories reverberate through our history. I’m interested in the repetition of images and iconographies over hundreds of years, so Echo felt like an appropriate title.”
In the smaller triptych entitled Despoil (2024), Plunder (2024), and Revere (2024), showcase the horrific and graphic story of St. Agatha of Sicily, a 3rd-century Christian virgin martyr. During 3rd-century Sicily, when it was under the Roman Empire under the reign of Roman emperor Decius, followers of Christianity were often persecuted, tortured, and killed for practicing their faith. It was during this reign that Quintanius, a Roman governor, relentlessly pursued the 15-year-old Agatha, who had made a vow of virginity and rejected Quintanius’s advances. Quintanius’s inability to take no for an answer led to Agatha being imprisoned in a brothel and tortured. Her breasts were forcibly removed by tongs.
The two of the three miniature paintings showcase the female figure representing St. Agatha holding a blood-stained cloth against her breasts. The second painting shows a mysterious figure presenting her dismembered breasts on a platter. The figures‘ faces remain hidden from view.
Mockrin‘s five-panel painting, The Descent (2024), is the largest painting in the entire exhibition. The painting was based on the miniature ivory figures crowded in Ignaz Elhafen’s tankard, Rape of the Sabine Women (1697). Stretching nearly the entire length of the wall, and done in the signature grey tones of grisaille painting, Mockrin reveals the barbaric truth behind the delicate miniature embellishment on the gold and ivory beer stein.
In the original story, Romulus, founder of the city of Rome, realized that there weren’t any women in the new settlement. To remedy this, he sent envoys to the neighbouring tribes surrounding Rome (the Sabine tribe being one of the neighbouring tribes) and invited them to a festival in the new city of Rome. Little did these people know that the festival was a ruse, and the men were forced out, and the women were abducted, raped, and forced to marry and bear the children of the male Roman soldiers.
In The Descent (2024), Mockrin blows up the once-miniature Sabine women to life size, pulling their fear, struggles, and resistance into sharp focus. Against the empty, pitch-black backdrop, their twisted bodies and panicked expressions feel less like myth and more like breaking news—a scene of chaos and terror unfolding right in front of us. Stand before it long enough, and one could swear to hear the piercing screams rising from the canvas.
Seeing Historical Anew
For those eager to see art history refracted through a contemporary feminist lens, Echo offers a rare chance to experience it firsthand. On view at the Art Gallery of Ontario until , the exhibition is as much a conversation with the past as it is a statement for the present—and well worth the visit.
For more information on Jesse Mockrin: Echo, please visit
Art Gallery of Ontario official site.
