Il Giudizio
Acrilico su tela. · 2026 · 70 x 70 cm
In myth, Medusa was a woman of extraordinary beauty. Her story is marked by a transformation: from woman to monster, from desired figure to feared creature. Punished and condemned, she becomes the one whose gaze has the power to petrify anyone who crosses it. Caravaggio created an image of her destined to remain in history: a face shot with terror, a gaping mouth, snakes for hair. An image that still confronts us today with fear and the violence of the gaze. Today, it's not just the eyes that observe us. We are immersed in a world where every image is displayed, viewed, and evaluated. Views, comments, hearts, and notifications become new forms of judgment. The gaze no longer simply encounters us: it measures us, compares us, and defines us. Hence my Medusa was born, surrounded by phones and symbols of a digital world that seems never to stop observing us. Her face retains fear, but also the vulnerability of those who find themselves judged without truly being known. Her transformation then becomes something that goes beyond myth: how many times can a look, an opinion, or a judgment change the way a person is perceived? How often do we end up prisoners of the image others construct of us? Petrification is no longer just what legend tells. It is also the risk of remaining immobile before the judgment of others, of feeling trapped in an image, a label, a representation that doesn't belong to us. Who is really the monster? The one who is looked at or the one who looks judging? Perhaps the myth of Medusa continues to speak to us precisely because, despite the passage of time, we have not stopped looking, judging, and transforming others through our gaze. And perhaps, even today, the true power of the gaze is not to petrify those who encounter it, but to decide who we are in the eyes of others. Judgment is not just a look. It is the weight it leaves.
