Medusa (2026)
76 x 47 cm (30 x 18.5 inches), on HDF base
Materials: crockery, beads, porcelain, pottery, tiles, and so many different kinds of glass - iridescent, antique, textured, reflective, nuggets, vitreous, shiny, transparent, opaque...
Grouted in several grout colours, some tinted grout lines
The concept came to me during lockdown when I was suffering from a frozen shoulder – I have been working on her on and off for several years. This is a self-portrait from a photograph I took of myself.
There are many tellings of Medusa’s story, but the true one goes like this: Medusa was a faithful Temple Maiden to the Goddess Athena. One day Zeus decided to seduce Medusa, and when she refused him, he resorted to violence. Athena found her favourite Temple Maiden soon after, deeply wounded and traumatised. Athena did not have the strength to take direct revenge on Zeus, but she promised Medusa that no one should ever have that kind of power over her ever again.
So she gifted Medusa with an impenetrable defence – her long flowing tresses were transformed into a head full of writhing emerald snakes with glowing red eyes. They would instantly turn anyone who approached Medusa with ill intent, into stone.
Medusa retreated to an island to live alone with only her snakes for company. Their soft hissing sung her to sleep at night, and their gentle caresses calmed her when she awoke, screaming, from her nightmares.
In time other people joined her on her island - misfits, walking wounded, poor souls who needed a place of safety to get away from the harm that had befallen them.
Don’t believe the other tales. It was hard for story tellers of the time (and ours) to believe that a woman on her own, with a head full of snakes no less, could ever be happy or content. Most visitors never returned: the maliciously curious, potential seducers, sensationalist spectators, biased historians, bloodthirsty heroes, none of them survived their encounter with the glowing red eyes of Medusa’s snakes. We all know what conclusions were drawn from this.
However, the people who did join her small community enjoyed a very nice collection surprisingly life-like marble statues.
