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| Indra Khanna |
This larger-than-life-sized bronze statue by British-Guyanese sculptor Hew Locke graces the front of the Nadler Hotel in London's SoHo district. Called Selene after the Greek goddess of the moon and of magic, the sculpture is of a black woman floating on a galaxy of stars while offering garlands made from winged masks of the Greek personification of sleep, Hypnos. The classical statue is as much is informed by Art Nouveau, Victorian fairy paintings as by the glamorous drag queens found in the neighbourhood. Locke includes two plants associated with sleep in Shakespeare's plays: the belladonna and the pansy, as well as two different night-blooming flowers known as 'Queen of the Night' - one a type of cactus, the other a type of jasmine in his work. The statue also holds night-blooming dragon fruit flowers named the 'David Bowie' which references that artist's Ziggy Stardust character and his associations with SoHo.
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