Portraits of Female Saints

I started painting female Saints in 2003.

Since I first studied art history in college, I have been spiritually and visually interested in religious paintings. My interest was sweetened by the icons and santos that I saw and collected on trips to Santa Fe, New Mexico, beginning in the 1980's. I was further inspired by the volume of religious art that I studied in Rome in 1995.

I spent six years thinking about HOW to paint female Saints. During the summer of 2003, while reorganizing my studio, I picked up my Mother's wedding photograph. I looked at her face, the veil, the clarity and innocence of her expression, and I decided that I could use her image as a starting point. She became "Bride of the Mission".

I later used other family photographs and photographs that friends gave me of themselves and their relatives. These photographs were a "jumping off" point for the placement of facial features, but I did not limit myself to the photograph. I let the paint and the particular Saint carry me. In the last year I used models.

Some of the paintings have backgrounds that are inspired by my studies of the lives of the different Saints, their stories, visions and locations.

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To see more images in this series, please contact the artist.