Medusa — Original Mixed Media on Wood | Rita Irvin

She doesn't turn people to stone. She turns them to stillness.

Medusa stares back — calm, blue-eyed, unafraid. Her face is painted in deep teal against a background of newsprint and shadow, the noise of the world absorbed into the dark collaged surface behind her. But it is her crown that commands the room: eight serpents coil and writhe outward, their scales built one by one from hand-cut aluminum — silver, iridescent, catching light from every angle like living armor. Each snake head is painted with fierce precision, fangs bared, red tongues forked, teal scales carved into the wood beneath.

This is not the monster of the myth. This is the woman before the myth got to her — sovereign, self-contained, and completely in possession of her own power. The snakes are not a curse. They are a crown.

Up close, the surface reveals itself: the aluminum scales shimmer and shift, the newsprint headlines bleed through layers of paint and ink, the carved wood grain runs beneath it all like the bones of the piece. She rewards attention. She demands it.

• Medium: Mixed media on carved wood panel
• Dimensions: 30 × 30 inches, framed
• Materials: Hand-carved wood, acrylic paint, newspaper collage, ink, hand-cut aluminum
• Framed: Dark frame, ready to hang
• Signed by the artist

About the Artist
Rita Irvin is a self-taught mixed-media artist born and raised in West Berlin, Germany. Her work explores memory, emotion, and transformation through layered textures, surreal symbolism, and dreamlike imagery. Influenced by Dalí, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keeffe, Rita developed her own visual language without formal training — shaped by years in interior design and a lifelong immersion in art and architecture. Every piece is a one-of-a-kind original, made by hand and never reproduced.

Questions or commission inquiries: info@ritairvin.com