A Siren's Return
A being once mistaken for myth, emerging
again from the deep —
not invented, but remembered.
Charcoal, graphite & dry pastel
on Pastelmat board
A Siren's Return
She does not arrive as fantasy.
She surfaces as something older — a presence once translated into folklore
because humanity had no other language for what it saw.
In this work, the siren is not imagined as decoration or legend, but as a living being
returning to view: biological, watchful, and impossible to dismiss.
This is not a creature invented for story.
It is a portrait of something remembered.
Original artwork: Charcoal, graphite & dry pastels on Pastelmat board
April 28, 2026
About the Work
A portrait of biological myth, ancient memory, and return from the deep
A Siren’s Return began long before the artwork itself.
As a child, I was drawn to the unexplained — not as fantasy, but as possibility. Mermaids, monsters, ancient beings, and impossible creatures never felt separate from the natural world to me. They felt like things humanity may have once encountered, misunderstood, feared, worshipped, or slowly forgotten.
This piece is my way of bringing that belief into realism.
She is not imagined as a decorative mermaid or a creature from folklore. She is approached as if she belongs to biology — a being shaped by water, instinct, adaptation, and survival. Her body carries the language of the sea: slick skin, fins, scale-like textures, ridges, and anatomical forms that suggest evolution rather than costume.
There is no flowing hair, no softness added to make her harmless.
She is beautiful, but not tame.
Her gaze is direct because she is not asking to be believed in. She has already existed somewhere beneath the stories.
In The Natural History of Myth, beings like her are not invented from nothing. They return as living presences — ancient, watchful, and biologically possible.
A Siren’s Return is the moment myth rises back into view.
Not as fantasy.
As memory.
Process & Surface
Painted Into Being
This piece was created with charcoal, graphite, and dry pastel on Pastelmat board, using a brush-based approach that felt closer to painting than drawing. Charcoal and soft dry media were used to build atmosphere, skin, water, and shadow, while finely sharpened graphite allowed for the smallest details and the subtle grey transitions that charcoal alone would have made too heavy.
A Siren’s Return demanded detail everywhere. Every ridge, scale, droplet, shadow, and anatomical shift had to be built slowly until she felt less like an imagined figure and more like a being emerging into recognition.
The work took approximately 100 hours to complete — a process of patience, precision, and watching her arrive layer by layer until the being looking back at me finally felt alive, conscious, and aware.
Exhibition & Collection
A Siren’s Return is currently held as an original artwork and forms part of Jen Myhre’s evolving exhibition series, The Natural History of Myth — a body of hyperreal work approaching ancient beings not as fantasy, but as living presences shaped by instinct, biology, memory, and survival.
This piece marks one of the first completed works in the collection, establishing the world these beings return from: intimate, watchful, ancient, and impossible to dismiss.
For availability, exhibition, patronage, or viewing inquiries, please contact the artist directly.
