Cordelia

In Max Cantrell’s haunting and poetic painting “Cordelia,” we are submerged into a dreamlike underwater world. At the center floats Cordelia, a girl with flowing orange hair, suspended among a tranquil community of fish. Though she appears to be part of the sea, on her head rests a clear fish tank, containing a single, bright orange fish—a mirror of Cordelia herself.

The painting draws inspiration from Cordelia, the mythological daughter of the sea. But Cantrell reimagines her not just as oceanic royalty, but as a symbol of interconnectedness—between human and habitat, soul and sea, myth and environment. Cordelia is all of us, especially the young, bearing the weight of ecological harm yet hopeful, alive, and still surrounded by beauty.

This painting is a call to consciousness, reminding us that if we are to preserve the oceans, we must recognize our deep entanglement with them—not as owners, but as stewards and kin. The ocean is not just around us. It is in us.

And like Cordelia, we may find ourselves in a world where, to survive, we carry a fragile, glass-walled piece of the sea on our heads—unless we act to keep it whole.