“Safe Haven", Mary Cox & Sara Ettlinger

Opening: 1 October 2025 7:30 p.m.
Duration:  1 October – 6 November 2025-09-25
Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1 -3:30 p.m. and Saturday 4 – 7 p.m. 

In a two-women exhibition, Mary Cox and Sarah Ettlinger address a common theme, a sanctuary facing an uncertain future.  Their paintings focus on a special swimming place, dear to each artist, the Kenwood Ladies Ponds in London and a public access beach in Vouliagmeni.  The  work highlights the vulnerability of both,  the likelihood that they will not stay the same and will lose certain qualities valued by the artists. 

Mary Cox paints portraits of aging ramshackle houses located behind an orphanage in Vouliagmeni. Nestled between two very expensive and over-touristed beaches, this spot gives public access to a beautiful “free beach” with no organized lounges or umbrellas, something which is becoming ever more rare. The Greek church however, has sold the orphanage to developers, and the small shacks could be razed and the property there developed as well, limiting access to the beach. The clapboard shacks were built in the mid 20th century and given to families for use during the summer months, with each family allowed use only one time. The shacks were modified and added onto by new families every year, until the program ended around the year 2000. Since then, they were abandoned to the elements, and over the years covered with graffiti. The contrast of bright coloured urban graffiti with local pines and greenery, with glimpses of the turquoise bays in the background, produces a visual excitement, evoking a fairy tale scenario.

SARAH ETTLINGER explores the importance of preserving the few areas designated as women-only. She brings to light the undeniable and special bond between women when partaking in a single-sex event, action, ceremony or ritual together, asking ultimately, ‘What is it to be a woman? “ 

The series took seed during Lockdown with her winter swimming along the coastline of Attika, an activity that kept her sane during this extraordinary time. The swims became ritualistic uniting a group of women and bonding them to nature. Simultaneously it was triggered by the debate brought to a head by the campaign #LetWomenSwim– in their demand to preserve the unique single-sex domain, the Kenwood Ladies’ Ponds London. 

Mary Cox is an American painter with Greek nationality living and working in Greece since 1993. She holds a Masters in Fine Art from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California. She has shown her work in galleries in Greece and abroad since 1999. Over the years she has taken up different subject matter and used a range of media, from a mixed-media series on migration which was selected for a biennial in Lulea, Sweden in 2011, to a photo-realistic series of paintings of old houses in the southern suburbs of Athens. In 2022, she took part in the two-person show Athenian Topographies at AAA3A art space in New York and in the group show Synthetic Zero at Bronx Art Space, NYC. More recently she took part in Never Wait! / ¡Nunca Esperes! at Bronx River Art Center in NYC (2024). Since 2016 she has co-directed FokiaNou Art Space. 

 

Sarah Ettlinger is a British artist living and working in Athens Greece, since 1991. She graduated from Middlesex University London with distinction and went on to Liverpool University where she received a 1st class BA Hons degree in Art & Design. She has exhibited her work in solo and group shows in Greece, England, France, Sweden and Ecuador. Notable solo shows include - “Lost Innocence” London, UK and “In-External contortions” Athens, Greece. Sarah Ettlinger has been active in a number of artist initiative projects, co-curating and participating in “Athens ArtCore Festival” 2020, “Private View” ArtAz 2014, “ReMap II” 2009 and “Where is the art? / Open Spaces, 2007” a parallel event to the 1st Athens Biennale. More recently she took part in the exhibition Hyperhidrosis: Sweating Together at the Modern Greek Culture BATH HOUSE OF THE WINDS.