Final rug design: "Precocious Menstruation", Bethan Hemus, 2026 - how my piece was informed

I started researching folkloric masks and costumes because I wanted this piece to hold something otherworldly and archetypal. After experimenting and reflecting on this theme more, I decided I wanted to being a strong feminist narrative into the work. This led me to create a piece with 2 distinct aspects, one divine female and one divine male; skewed as they both can be by patriarchy.

The female figure is a modern interpretation of the Raoman goddess Diana.  In Roman mythology, Diana is closely associated with the deer, a sacred animal to her. The deer is often depicted as a symbol of Diana's vengeance and her role as a protector of wild animals. In mythological tales, Diana uses the deer to punish Actaeon and to save Iphigenia. The deer is a central element in Diana's iconography, representing her connection to the wilderness and her powers as a huntress. The female characters face holds concern and a sense of wound. But her body is strong and my instinct is to cover her with a complex kind of camoflage that represents both survival and predation.

Her limbs have mostly been coopted by male counterparts in the form of hands with various eyes. These represent the male gaze and how dominated the female experience is by the colonial misogyny that is deeply ingrained in most human culture. 

Around the time I was making this piece I watched Louis Theroux's latest documentary Inside The Manosphere. I feel like he is a very canny observer of the human condition and a story teller that offers all sorts of valuable lenses on complicated characters and issues. I wanted the bottom hand to convey his gaze a little. One of bewliderment I suppose. He often stays very quiet during interviews which seems like a counter-intuitive decision but one that actually leaves huge space for those he is connecting with to reveal themselves. All the other hands with eyes are looking at each other where as the bottom hand is looking directly at the audience, inviting them to have relationship.

The weeping eye was a late addition and one that speaks of my recent bereavement. This experience has cut through my families life and so it was impossible for me to not discuss it in this current work.

The weeping eye is also an acknowledgement of how complex it is to stand in divine male power sometimes. And is a compassionate gesture to my understanding that patriarchy harms men just as it harms women.

The female character stands in the centre of this piece, looking dejected. Her limbs end with 2 different types of character. The hands with eyes represent the male gaze and the misogynistic aspects of culture that her natural state and agency is so interrupted by. They are both comical and awful, creating a tension which is not binary and offers more questions and wondering than it offers answers.

The other character, the weeping eye, offers an honest and sympathetic lens on the harms caused by patriarchy to divine male. This eye character is also autobiographical. I added this element following the death of my daughters father. It was impossible for me to not include this event in the work, because that life event changed everything, including me. The eye is both sorrowful and harmful, as it cuts through the form with its jagged lines and dashes.

I hope that the levity in the piece makes its more shadowy aspects more accessible.