MEDUSA
Charred lime wood carving, gold wire.
This piece is based on Caravaggio's painting of the Medusa. It was made to appear on the front cover of Terminal Dot magazine, issue 4, which was inspired by a talk given by presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham in the summer of 2025. He proposed (and I have since read it elsewhere) of a third category of instinctive responses to perceived threat, Freeze, to add to Fight or Flight, and that would explain people's response to the climate emergency that is now happening. Don't move, it might not be as bad as it looks. My neighbour also went in to hospital to have an excess of fluid removed from his back, and he told me that they had drilled a hole in his head to release the juice. He is something of an unreliable narrator, mind. Terminal Dot issue 4 is currently in production, and it may see the light later this or at some point next year.
For this piece I created the head and snakes as I would normally do, by glueing individual pieces of wood together and then carving them into a smooth shape. Once it was complete I blow torched the whole lot (I removed the snakes to get a full coverage of charring). I had not done this before and I was not sure if the whole thing would fall apart. It seems to be holding together, for now.
