In this reimagining of Juno and Argus, Hannah strips the myth of its original context, reshaping it into a meditation on power, violence, and reclamation. The two women from Rubens’ painting remain, now infused with new purpose… their act of removing the severed head’s disembodied eyes is no longer a mere transference of vision to a peacock but a symbolic reclamation of power long stripped from women. The beheaded male figure, entangled in illusion paper tentacles, represents the struggle against oppressive forces and the necessity of dismantling them.

Above, a full moon looms large, signifying clarity, transformation, and emotional intensity. It casts its light over the scene, illuminating hard truths and the inescapable cycles of destruction and rebirth. To the left, a hybrid figure (a woman’s body with the head of a Gray Crowned-crane) suggests the relentless violence enacted upon women’s bodies, her altered form embodying both the wounds of that history and the refusal to be erased.

The title, If You Pray Hard Enough..., stems from a harrowing memory from Hannah’s childhood. When her mother died, members of her church told her, If you pray hard enough, your mother will come back to you. These words, spoken to an 11-year-old in mourning, encapsulate the painful weight of faith used as a means of control, of hope weaponized into expectation. Here, Hannah reframes that formative trauma, transforming blind faith into defiant agency.

Through this piece, she confronts the tension between power and vulnerability, violence and agency. By extracting key elements from a rarely depicted myth and intertwining them with her own visual language, she forces us to reckon with history’s cycles, and the necessity of rewriting its narrative.