Shark Girl as Boxer

About the Art

Shark Girl—feet shoulder-width apart, hands in fists, arms close—is inspired by Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes and British women boxers in the early 1700s. Like Shark Girl, Stokes fought “in cloth Jackets, short Petticoats, coming just below the Knee, Holland Drawers, white Stockings, and pumps.” British boxing included biting, scratching and hair-pulling but Stokes preferred the “half-crown rule” which meant boxers keep a half crown coin in each hand, keeping them curled into fists. Famous in her time, Stokes fought men and women alike with her bare knuckles and had an evidently impeccable record.

Shark Girl appears regularly in Riordan’s work and represents her irrational fears and anxiety; Shark Girl was inspired by Riordan’s childhood fear of a shark being in the swimming pool. What might it mean to embody our fears—to literally face them? Perhaps if one did that, they could do anything.

FEATURED IMAGE
Casey Riordan Millard (American, born 1973), Shark Girl as Boxer, 2016, mixed media, 78 x 32 x 32 inches (198.1 x 81.3 x 81.3 cm). Gift of Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell, 2026.26