Portfolio > Ariadne: The Other Story

Epic Wrestlers
Epic Wrestlers
oil on canvas
63 x 127"
2009

Illicit sex, romantic love, self sacrifice, betrayal and violence are the epic themes woven throughout the commonly known Theseus / Minotaur tale. My emphasis though, is on her story, Ariadne's story. She is the unrecognized heroine. She provides Theseus with the sword to kill the beast and the means to rescue and escape, with the other Athenians, from the Labyrinth. Later abandoned and betrayed by Theseus, my Epic Wrestlers images Ariadne as a woman who does not abandon herself. She must struggle with her other self. The defeatist self. With the muscular strength and tenacity of a wrestler, she engages with force and counter force ambivalence and anguish associated with abandonment and betrayal. It is a fight for psychological integrity.
Some ancient tales tell of Ariadne's rescue by Dionysus (Bacchus) providing an happier ending than her suicide.
But there are more than two ways to end a myth.