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Nellys revenge by Karen Chappelow 90x100cm unstretched acrylic painting on canvas

In this work, Nelly the “elephant in the room” refuses to stay unnoticed. Towering in a Dalí-esque dreamscape, its feet have morphed into gleaming forks—an absurd mutation that points directly at the violence of a history too often polished into elegance. At the foreground, a hand lies freshly pierced, a symbolic act of revenge for the centuries-old practice of carving ivory into cutlery handles: the quiet brutality behind domestic refinement.

A checkmated chessboard anchors the scene, signalling a final, irreversible move—an endgame in which denial is no longer possible. Draped in coins, the elephant becomes a shimmering monument to imperial power, wealth, and the myth of “good fortune” built upon exploitation. The coins glint almost seductively, yet their weight presses heavily, reminding us that prosperity often rests on the backs of those who cannot speak.

This painting lives in the tension between whimsy and reckoning. Through surreal distortion and symbolic inversion, it asks the viewer not only to see the elephant, but to acknowledge it—its wounds, its burdens, and the uncomfortable truths it carries into the room.