Untitled, 2014–2015
— Nix Thérèse
Often we paint Medusa as a woman with relentless control, destroying someone with only so much as a glance in their direction. Her snakes are terrifying not just because they’re unusual offshoots from her roots, but because we’ve only seen them related to a kill, overtaking another body until it can only exist in stone. But Juul Kraijer offers a different perspective, one where the gorgon-like figure finally appears to rest. The intense light of the face is always juxtaposed against the stark black background and snakebodies that get increasingly darker the more they fan out of focal range. We see the face like a pool—each snake rippling only highlights the stillness at the center.
Each new frame gives us view of the snakes interlocking, bunching, and masking the face, seemingly more in conversation with each other than the body to which they’re attached. Yet the figure appears unbothered in almost every frame—notice how the eyebrows don’t arch & the mouth sits squarely & the nostrils remain unflared. Many of these could be sleepstates because the snakebodies cover the eyes so completely that little light could pass through. I imagine them as dreamguards, swimming around the body to address the surroundings minute by minute. I want this to be night. The expectation that the figure will lie still for extended periods of time & let the snakes roam seems selfish & unlikely to be upheld, no? I wonder how long this unraveling goes on, how many shapes they’re allowed to make before discomfort arrives.
Untitled 77, 80, & 81 bring fascinators to mind: the snakes graze the head & side of face like a sweep of netting or feathers, which feels like an unexpected gentleness. But 82 highlights a slight conflict to me. The tiny peek of downturned eye under the snake sliding over the lid to me implies awareness—the figure is not fully willing to shake the snake off course and look us straight on, but they feel the weight. Even the snake turned toward their chin feels predatory; it is feathery light now in its almost-touch, but could soon press down more. If the pool wanted to pull their ripples back into order, I couldn’t blame them. Sometimes you need to coil your universe closer.