Parts, Shared & Allotted Portions is a culmination of themes and forms explored in Melissa Tan’s earlier bodies of work, centering on celestial mapping, female mythological figures and representations of their narratives and attributes. With this new constellation, Tan brings together the titular Fates –  the triad of Maiden, Mother and Crone who spin out and allot each individual’s destiny – along with the nine Muses of the arts and the three Charities (Joy, Hope and Beauty).

In Tan’s re-telling, these mythological figures find form in scintillant metal sculptures that reference the astronomical positions of the asteroids that have been named for these goddesses. Each unique shape is both a ‘house’ as well as a portal in space-time through which we glimpse a figure, and her story.

The Fates, the Muses, and the Charities are a deeply personal and meaningful assembly for the artist to invoke. Mirrored in the stars, they span the breadth of human emotion and expression, personifying the many faces and facets of creative inspiration, as well as the gentle wellspring of hope, beauty and joy that offer us solace – all the things that make the vagaries of fate, and our shared and allotted time on earth, something worth living for.