Katie Windram
Instagram: @Ktssketchbook
Email: katielsw@outlook.com
Katie Windram has produced a variety of work that explores the similarities between sexual violence and the experience of women in both Greek mythology and the modern day. Medusa has been a recurring influence in her work over the last year of her studies, especially Ovid’s Metamorphoses from 8 CE. Ultimately, Windram’s work is a commentary on the ongoing struggle to shift the narrative around sexual violence, both in ancient mythology and in modern society. She uses bold colours and images of self to represent the current state of the world in regard to sexual assault. It serves as a call for empathy, recognition, and justice, urging a world where survivors are supported and empowered, rather than blamed or erased. Medusa’s gaze, once a symbol of horror, becomes one of defiance and truth.
Windram aimed to create a relationship between these past myths and today's modern world by marrying the two, through digital drawing and photo editing. She experimented in creating characters that fit within the narrative of Ovid’s version of the Myth and by morphing images of herself into the image of Medusa using makeup, photo editing and image bashing.
Her goal was to create something that forms a personalised narrative within one's mind. Windram wanted to speak to the audience and reach them on a level that is deeper than just surface viewership.
‘My Medusa’
Mixed media canvases with photo prints
2025
91.5 x 71.1 cm
Katie's work explores the complex and often painful themes of sexual assault through the lens of Greek mythology, with a particular focus on Medusa's narrative. Instead of being acknowledged as a victim, Medusa is punished by being turned into a creature whose gaze turns men to stone. This transformation is a striking metaphor for how society often punishes victims of trauma rather than those who commit the harm.