Lady Monster
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Lady Monster
from the Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello collection
Acrylic, rhinestones, glitter, snake shed, acrylic resin on canvas, framed in lacquered wood with gilded beading.
Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello
I go into detail about what this collection is all about on the collection overview page, but if you haven’t seen that you can read the description in the accordion below - click the + sign.
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If you have spent any time in my company over the last six to eight months, you will have heard me talk about my latest collection, Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello.
The collection comprises 10 pieces inspired by things actual men said to me instead of hello during a period of online dating in my mid-thirties. I took screenshots of the most heinous, graphic, and creepy openers and, although at the time I wasn’t sure what I was saving them for, the idea for this collection arrived a few years later.
The purpose of bringing these ‘greetings’ (if you can call them that) into the light is not to demonise men, and paint them as predatory monsters in contrast to the delicate saintliness of women eyeroll. It’s to open the floor for discussions about the patriarchal waters we are all swimming in, perpetuate, and, to a greater or lesser degree, are complicit in.
I want to provoke discussions about rape culture, the male gaze, beauty standards etc etc, and explore all the ways in which we all benefit or are hindered by the status quo. Most importantly, I want you to join me in the horrified realisation of how NORMAL we’ve made all of these things.
When I’ve told people about this collection, the responses from women and men are vastly different. The women know immediately what I’m referring to, and usually respond with some related (horror) story, delivered in the blasé manner of someone who has been dealing with this shit her whole life (because she has).
The men on the other hand, range from absolutely horrified, to knowing stuff like this happens but only in an abstract kinda way, to (on one memorable occasion) asking me if any of the ‘Men’ I’m referring to have ever mentioned my “great tits” - I kid you not.
I’m not going to go into all of the ways that the patriarchy is a problem for men as much as it is a problem for women (and I’m aware that I’m leaning into the gender binary here for simplicity’s sake, but really it’s a problem for ALL of us), but suffice to say that we can’t make things better unless we can see, identify, and name the problem.
This collection is my contribution to bringing these open secrets into the light.
Lady Monster
As soon as I saw this ‘greeting’ pop up on my notifications: ‘Your pretty eyes make me hard’, I thought of Medusa. I thought of the poor man, petrified into a column of granite by my powerful gaze (even through a screen!), and wondered how he still had the capacity to type.
With that in mind, I suppose you could call this piece something of a revenge fantasy. But really, it’s a reclamation of power.
Once again (as with Sales Pitch) I’ve leaned into classical imagery with these faceted square rhinestones which create a mosaic effect, almost Byzantine in nature. I wanted to ground this piece in the ancient, the mythological, the idea that women have been dealing with this shit for centuries.
The pièce de résistance, though, is the border of snake shed - and, yes, it’s real snake skin. Evoking the legendary serpentine locks of Medusa herself. But this is just the shed skin, discarded and left behind, suggesting she's already moved beyond this version of herself, already transformed and grown, whilst he remains frozen in his own objectification.
In the original myth, Medusa was punished for being raped in Athena's temple – her beauty became a curse, and her gaze a weapon. She's the ultimate Lady Monster, her monstrousness created by male violence, turned into a protective talisman against exactly this kind of predatory attention. By invoking her here, I’m reclaiming that narrative: yes, my eyes will make you hard – they’ll turn you to stone, frozen mid-leer.
Medusa's myth is thousands of years old, yet here I am in the 21st century, still receiving the same entitled male gaze albeit through new technology. The platforms change, the predation doesn't.
If being considered a ‘Lady Monster’ is the price for refusing to remain pretty and passive, then sign me up.
Every time I look at this piece, I think about that man, frozen in his moment of entitled confidence, never knowing he was going to be immortalised as a cautionary tale. My pretty eyes made him hard, alright. May he stand trapped here forever: a monument, a warning, a relic.
See the rest of the pieces in this collection below.
