464 Gallery

464 Amherst St

Buffalo, NY

6 to 11 pm

Friday, May 7th

Complimentary deliciousness in both liquid and solid form will be provided, as well as merriment, interactive installations, and the grand opening of Blink Gallery right next store that same night!

Encaustic on Canvas

60 x 24 inches

48 x 24 inches

Encaustic on Canvas

48 x 24 inches

Encaustic on Canvas

36 x 24 inches


Our Lady of Song

Encaustic on Canvas

36 x 24 inches

Encaustic on Canvas

22 x 24 inches

Encaustic on Canvas

22 x 24 inches$300

Artist Statement

The seven stars that make up this series are the points of a crown. They are divine, passionate women.

Living day to day, our minds are constantly filtering images into categories. A thousand times a day or more we see, hear, and are exposed to two huge cultural archetypes: the male as a figure of divine authority (Yahweh, Jesus. Allah, Buddha, that guy who does movie trailer voice-overs…) and the female as a sexual object (advertisements from toothpaste to cars, music videos, media everywhere.) While this isn’t news to most, the fact remains that we rarely see images of women as figures of authority, and very rarely as images of divine authority, undiminished by their sex.

Sex- both the gender and the act- has created a false divide in our modern archetypes of women: the Mother, the Madonna, is holy and virginal. The Whore is unholy and sexual. If these are the images we are given of women, if these are the archetypes young men and women are exposed to, surely our expectations of behavior for girls will be heavily imbued with judgment about women exercising their natural sexuality, and about being female in the first place.

The women in my series are innocent in that they have no idea of this manufactured dichotomy. They have no idea that they should strive to fulfill one role or the other. They are free to embrace their inclinations without unspoken censure from media bombardment or the attitudes of others.

They represent a new archetype, or rather an ancient one new to mainstream culture. They are images of the unrestrained feminine divine. They are not powerful despite their sex. They are powerful, period. This holy power was not gained by abstaining from or repressing their female attributes- they are naked and unashamed because there is no stigma in their minds about being a woman.

At the same time, these figures are not meant to be explicitly sexual, because their sexuality is only one aspect of their power. Their personhood, their humanity, is an integral part of their divinity- and that includes body, soul, mind, and strength.

There is also an autobiographical aspect to this series. My family is Roman Catholic, and I have appropriated the gold leaf haloes from medieval and Byzantine art. As a Catholic I have been exposed to Mary and the Saints over and over as divine women, but always as subordinate to stronger male figures. Therefore, my models for this series are the women in my family, because they are where I have seen women as strong and unapologetic in my own experience.

This can come across as reactionary, but it is never my intention to exclude divine men or male ideas- it is my intention to provide both options for everyone. I want to provide images of the feminine divine, because we all need a mix of male and female wisdom to achieve balance, and these images are in short supply when compared to the dearth of media representation of women. These ladies are different facets of womanhood and women’s wisdom. Their hands speak as loudly as their expressions because they are goddesses of action- living flesh and light. Together they form a crown of stars.

“For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

…I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

…But I am she who exists in all fears and strength in trembling.

I am she who is weak,and I am well in a pleasant place.

I am senseless and I am wise.”

-THUNDER, PERFECT MIND ~ Gnostic Poem 100, AD