interventions: Actaeon and Diana
Actaeon and Diana, where the hunter becomes the hunted.
A misstep by Actaeon has aroused the wrath of goddess Artemis or Diana eventually leading to his death. There are many and different recounts of the myth; however, they all revolve around the notion that he was a hunter that was transformed into a stag and was then killed by his hunting dogs.
According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, the goddess Diana is bathing along with the nymphs. Actaeon strays with aimless steps through the strange wood, and enters a sacred grove… As soon as he reaches the cave mouth which is dampened by the fountain, Diana and the naked nymphs, seeing a man’s face, beat at their breasts and fill the whole wood with their sudden outcry. They crowd round Diana to shield her from the intruder, Actaeon th their bodies... Diana’s face, seen there, while she herself was naked, was the colour of clouds stained by the opposing shafts of sun... She [Diana] catches up a handful of the water and throws it in the man’s face...and without any more threats from him, she transforms Actaeon into a stag with horns to his head, she lengthens his neck, making his ear-tips pointed, changing feet for hands, long legs for arms, and covering his body with a dappled hide... The hunting dogs of Actaeon surround him (who has now taken the deceptive shape of a deer) on every side, sinking their jaws into his flesh, tearing their master to pieces.
unsanctioned intervention, 2021, New York, NY,
materials: acrylic paint, cut holes, lace appliqués, acid-free ink, archival watercolor paper (23 X15 inches)
