Saints & Sinners XXIII

The Folk Tree
217 South Fair Oaks Avenue
Pasadena, CA
March 6 - April 10, 2010
Reception: March 6, 2-6PM

I'm contributing three old-world style oil paintings of Madonnas and four papier-mâché angels to the "Saints" part of the Saints & Sinners show. All of the pieces represent the idealized mother. With their dark, downcast eyes, the Madonnas embody unconditional love and compassion tinged with sadness that springs from the foreknowledge of death, a theme common to Byzantine and medieval art.

The angels, by contrast, represent powerful, happy mother figures with dangerous curves, open arms, upswept wings, and painted toenails. Three of the angels sport bright colors reminiscent of Mexican blankets and tropical fruits, a blend of the pagan and the Christian in the New World. One gold and silver tinged angel harkens back to the origin of "winged" angels in Christianity, the co-opting of the ancient Egyptian mother and fertility goddess Isis who resurrected her green brother/husband Osiris. The pagan story of rebirth played out on the annual flooding of the Nile is perpetuated in our own rites of spring.

Gallery hours are:
M-W, 11-6; Th-Sat, 10-6; Sun, 12-5
For more information, contact The Folk Tree at 626/795-8733 or Gail Mishkin at 626/793-4828