My first encounter with “Medusa” (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1640) leaded me to the reinterpretation of this classic myth, obtaining as a result an iconographic set of different promethean, hybrid and abject women who travel through the time dancing among serpents.
Furthermore, I propose a positive reading of the snake, as it happens in other cultures. Wisdom, strength, healing… and a fabulous capacity for renewal which materializes in the shedding of their skin to get rid of parasites and repair wounds. An idea that I have reinforced opening some golden interstices in the canvas which imitate the centuries-old Japanese technique of the “kintsugi”, that refers to the inner light that emanates from the scars, a symbol of recovery from adversity and mistakes.
Together with the Gorgons and the snakes, I also introduce a series of sunflower paintings, which directly refer to Vincent van Gogh work. In mine, the sunflowers speak of change and hope in the future and, at the same time, about the very need of resistance against a cultural, political and social context which cruelly punishes what is different, independent, rebellious and untameable.
Through these works I have initiated a research process, both conceptual and pictorial, in which I reinterpret the myth of Medusa in a very personal way, far beyond ancient mythology. I enter the borders, in no man’s land, to explore the empty spaces between mythology, the western pictorial tradition and contemporary culture.