Emma Hixson’s 2023 senior thesis exhibition, A Girl’s Guide to the Monstrous Feminine, explores the connections between the female monsters of ancient Greek mythology and the modern horror film genre. Through image-based quilts, watercolor paintings, custom-made posters, video-work, a film screening, and a zine, Hixson examines the stories of the past and present through the lenses of art history, feminism, and film theory.
The Laugh of the Medusa | 2022 | hand-dyed, MX dye painted, machine-stitched, embroidered, and beaded cotton; recreation of Caravaggio’s Medusa | 18x24
Medusa gives birth to Pegasus, son of Poseidon | 2022 | hand-dyed, MX dye painted, machine-stitched, embroidered, and beaded linen and silk organza | 22x30
Procne + Philomela | 2023 | clay-resisted indigo-dyed, embroidered, and beaded cotton, hand-dyed canvas | 9x12
Medea and her sons, part one of The House of Jason diptych | 2023 | watercolor | 10x12
Jason and his sons, part two of The House of Jason diptych | 2023 | watercolor | 10x12
The Maneater: fear of consumption, female desire, and the potentially duplicitous nature of women
The Woman Scorned: fear of women's retaliation, obsessive behaviors, and female hysteria
The Monstrous Womb: fear of the female body, menstruation, and women's reproductive power
Further Reading
Articles + Essays:
Medea the Feminist, Betine van Zyl Smit
The Aesthetics of Fear, Joyce Carol Oates
A hideous monster or a beautiful maiden?: Did the Western Greeks alter the concept of Gorgon?
Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film
Medusa in Ancient Greek Art | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Unnatural Hunger: Female Desire and Cannibalism in Horror
Nonfiction:
Lisa Maurizio, Classical Mythology in Context
Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Femnine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis
Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity
Natalie Haynes, Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
Mary R. Lefkowitz, Women in Greek Myth
Fiction:
Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries
Charlotte Higgins, Greek Myths
Video Essays:
A Girl’s Guide to the Monstrous Feminine: The Video
Featuring clips from: Cat People (1942), Carrie (1976), Possession (1981), Misery (1990), Ginger Snaps (2000), Teeth (2007), Jennifer’s Body (2009), Black Swan (2010), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), Gone Girl (2014), The Lure (2015), Raw (2016), Midsommar (2019), Ready or Not (2019), and Pearl (2022).