Monarch Eclipse & Monarch Vulvaris: Building Two Surreal Landscapes From the Same Photographs
My return to Abstract Distortions continues with two pieces I never intended to create as a pair.
Both began with photographs I had taken at different moments: a cell tower disguised as a palm tree against the desert mountains, an iron rod fence with one bent section, a monarch butterfly, and June’s Strawberry Full Moon suspended in the 3am desert sky.
I pulled each subject from its original setting and rebuilt them into a landscape that never existed.
From that reconstruction, two versions emerged.
Monarch Eclipse lives in the darkness.
Monarch Vulvaris does not.
I tried to choose between them. I couldn’t. So I’m keeping them both.
Four Photographs, One Surreal Landscape
The disguised palm tower already felt absurd enough on its own: technology attempting to imitate nature and failing just enough to make it interesting.
The iron fence gave me those repeating curved lines, including one bent section that broke the pattern.
The monarch was photographed during another walk after I spotted her on the open road and stopped to spend a few minutes with her.
And the moon came from a 3am photograph of June’s Strawberry Full Moon.
Once separated from their original environments, none of them had to remain what they had been.
The tower became the center of the landscape. The fence became architecture. The monarch moved from the ground to the top of the tower to moonbathe. And the moon became generously engorged.
The result felt simultaneously natural and completely impossible.
But there was still one decision left to make: what kind of sky existed in this world?
Changing only the atmosphere created two completely different pieces.
Monarch Eclipse
Monarch Eclipse is the darker and quieter of the two.
Against the black backdrop, the full moon dominates the landscape. The surrounding darkness strips away almost everything unnecessary and leaves the monarch, tower, mountains, fence, and moon suspended together.
I originally thought this would be the final composition.
Then I started experimenting with a photograph of my own body.
Monarch Vulvaris
Monarch Vulvaris uses the same reconstructed landscape as Monarch Eclipse, but its backdrop comes from an entirely different source: a photograph I took of my own vulva.
Rather than present the photograph literally, I digitally manipulated it in Canva using the Wobble effect, distorting the anatomy until its original form began to disappear.
I then changed the coloring, pushing the image into deep reds, oranges, and dark crimson tones.
The folds became waves, valleys, heat, atmosphere, movement. Once placed behind the desert landscape, the image could be read as molten sky, an alien atmosphere, an internal landscape, or something entirely abstract.
That transformation is exactly what interests me about Abstract Distortions: taking something recognizable, manipulating it beyond its expected context, and allowing it to become something else without completely erasing where it came from.
Artwork Details
Artist: Baroque Medusa
Titles: Monarch Eclipse and Monarch Vulvaris
Series: Abstract Distortions
Medium: Digital illustration created from original photography using photographic manipulation and digital collage
Orientation: Portrait
Year: 2026
Original source photographs:
- Original photograph of a cellular tower disguised as a palm tree against the desert mountains
- Original photograph of a metal fence photographed while outdoors walking
- Original photograph of a monarch butterfly photographed while outdoors walking
- Original photograph of the June full moon
- Original intimate self-photograph used exclusively in Monarch Vulvaris, digitally distorted using Canva’s Wobble effect and recolored to create the abstract backdrop
Monarch Eclipse: Four original photographs reconstructed into a surreal desert landscape against a black backdrop.
Monarch Vulvaris: The same four original photographs reconstructed against a fifth, digitally manipulated original photograph that transforms anatomy into an abstract red landscape.
Available:
- Original digital illustrations
- Part of the Abstract Distortions series
- Made-to-order canvas prints available upon request
- Contact Baroque Medusa directly for purchase inquiries
Baroque Medusa 
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