Gel transfer, graphite, paint, mixed media on canvas; monumental scroll format
The Moon as Witness, Not Savior
At the center sits a full moon containing an actual photographic image of the Virgin Mary. This substitution is critical. The moon—cyclical, reflective, indifferent—replaces divine light with borrowed illumination. Mary is no longer a savior figure but a witness embedded inside a larger cosmic indifference.
This move destabilizes Marian iconography entirely. The Madonna is not offering protection; she is trapped inside a celestial body that does not intervene. The maternal figure is present, but powerless.
Motherhood here is not redemptive.
Perhaps the most disturbing element is the cobra positioned where the woman’s legs should be. This is not merely symbolic substitution—it is ontological displacement. Legs signify agency, mobility, escape. Their removal replaces movement with threat.
The cobra invokes Eden, but not temptation. This serpent is not whispering lies; it is occupying the space where forward motion should exist. The body cannot flee. It cannot stand. It can only endure.
This transforms the traditional female body from object to battleground.
The arms—cut off and reattached by thin string—introduce the most explicit metaphor for agency under constraint. Arms are tools of action, care, labor, resistance. Their suspension suggests participation without power, responsibility without autonomy.
The strings recall puppetry, umbilical cords, and execution wires simultaneously. The body is animated, but not free.
