Medusa

Medusa

The Gorgon Medusa is a tale of tragedy that only Greek mythology could pull off.  She was punished for being so irresistably beautiful that she was raped by Poseidon.  Athena cursed her to live with the blind monsters at te end of the earth with loathsome snakes for hair.

She's always depicted as a beast in female form, but I wanted to paint her paying justice to the nature of her curse; her innate beauty.

The lacey ruff isn't Greek in nature as far as I can tell, but modern orthodox women wear it. I just fancied painting it.  There's something about that baroqial look I find visually fascinating and it just felt like it belonged in the same space as her melancholy.