Medus-Her

The story of Medusa hit me hard as a child. I empathized with her being targeted for being different. In the story I read she lived isolated from society in a cave. So called "heroes" sought out that cave to slay her. The reasoning for slaying her was because she turned people to stone. But this wasn't something she actively did. It was a consequence of looking at her. No one had to look at her. She could have lived away from people or been helped to fix the stone issue. Instead people tried to kill her repeatedly. I felt like this was how I was treated. My peers didn't like the way I looked, but instead of not looking at me, they bullied me.

In this painting I wanted to show Medusa as vulnerable, afraid, frustrated and disgusted with how she was being treated. Because that's how I felt when I was young.