Amelia House
Portfolio
Mia House “Medusae est Gratia”
12” x 18” acrylic, canvas 2021
I remember learning about Medusa’s Raft by Géricault in class, and it sparked the idea to paint Medusa. I was sketching for my social issues and I came up with what I wanted. Painting the snakes took the most time, honestly. It’s not entirely perfect, or exactly how I’d like them to look, but they are pretty good for what I could do.
I did this painting for my social issues because in the original story from ancient Greece was that Poseidon, mad at Athena for winning Athens over, raped the high priestess of her temple, Medusa. Athena, to protect Medusa, turned her hair into snakes, as a Gordon would have. Because of the way the Greek society went, the story was changed to be where Meduse seduced Poseidon and Athena punished her by making her quite ugly.
The reason I used this for my social issue because it’s supposed to show how when someone is raped, victim-blaming will become prevalent, and the victim will feel very trapped in themselves. I wanted to show that in a semi-realistic painting by making a beautiful Medusa.
Mia House “Loose Souls”
12” x18” acrylic, canvas 2021
I changed my painting twice before settling on what I was doing. When I first started, there were going to be flowers coming out of the top of the body. But I thought it didn’t look very good, so I changed it to be three different skulls coming out with smoke. The painting itself has a lot of meaning to me. As my identity piece, the lack of head, and the action of the skulls leaving the body is like the four parts of myself. The body, the part of me that is grounded, thinks things through; The left skull, which shows the side of me that’s almost devilish and wild; The middle skull, showing the calmness of myself, but still holding the part of me I’m scared off. The last skull represents my spiraling unconscious showing how different I feel compared to the rest.
I would describe the painting as surrealism, just because of how it looks.