The Passions
The Passions is informed by my experiences as a child brought up in the Catholic faith. A long history of Catholicism moves through my mother’s family with a variety of permutations including priests, bishops, archbishops, and an orphanage to my personal history of attending a parochial grade school, a private girl’s Catholic high school, and a Jesuit college.
The female icons that I became familiar with were perplexing and conflicting. The symbols of Aphrodite, Venus, and the Virgin Mary were complex and contradictory. The woman was virginal but coy, maternal but sexual, chaste but pregnant.
The body is shrouded or obscured, reflecting upon the inner self. Draped and wrapped in white cloth, the female figure is ritualized. The body pushes and pulls the fabric, wrapped in white, referencing idealized beauty, purity, death, anonymity, religion, and suppression. What is inside affects the surface and waits to be revealed.