Built upon the bones of Elisabetta Sirani’s Timoclea Kills the Captain of Alexander the Great, Mother Warned Me There’d Be Men Like You is not simply a reinterpretation, it’s a confrontation. In Hannah’s hands, the scene becomes a stage where centuries of violence against women are distilled into one brutal, symbolic reckoning. The fallen man isn’t just a historical villain... he’s a composite… a stand-in for every abuser, manipulator, and smiling destroyer who once held power over her.

The flames that rise behind the central figure are not just symbolic, they burn with lived experience. This is the fire of trauma long silenced... now demanding to be seen. Surrounded by flowers, the portal pretends at softness, but that softness is a trap, and she knows it. She has survived the performance of being “nice,” of being “good,” of keeping quiet. No more.

Hannah’s black-and-white tentacles emerge in defense and defiance... reclaiming the body, rewriting the narrative. They are her hands, her rage, her healing. Set against the hush of space and the bloodied earth, Mother Warned Me There’d Be Men Like You is both sacred ritual and scream. It is personal... mythic... and entirely unwilling to be polite about either.