Modern Deity
Much of my work is influenced by traditional artwork, from the renaissance and baroque movements. Often the art in these periods represented religion and divinity. Over the past few years I have felt frustration towards the representation of women in history, both in art and in mathematics. In FKA Twigs’ album, Magdalene, she talks about similar topics. She was frustrated by the negative representation of Mary Magdalene, marking her in a negative light due to her sexuality, and disregarding a lot of important aspects of her life due to this. Her album is about this, and about the similar way women are treated still.
Modern Deity draws on this. I wanted to create a series capturing these traditional stylistic motifs, and subverting the religious representations by changing the narrative, to cast women in a stronger, louder, bolder light. I want to show my subjects as characters that hold a sense of divinity.
MINATURES, 2023
Using an old floorboard from the shed, I created these small 12x15cm canvases. From these I wanted to create a series of icons, incorporating shapes with portraits.
JESUS IN A DRESS, 2022
Inspired by the line
“You said that rock and roll is dead
But is that just because it has not been resurrected in your image?
Like if Jesus came back, but in a beautiful dress”
from Choeromania by Florence and the Machine.
This painting began with the concept moodboard, which I created back in 2021. When I heard the song a year later, I knew Florence Welch was the perfect subject for what I had in mind. However, after a few compositions sketches, I realised none of the images I could find fitted the pose I wanted. In the end I painted free hand, with oils on canvas, using a collection of reference photos to work the painting into the pose I wanted.
DREAM STATE, 2022
This is an image of the singer, Mitski. The image takes inspiration from the celestial style of religious baroque works, combined with the geometric shapes found in brutalist architecture. I displayed my ideas in a moodboard, before creating a few different concepts in Adobe Photoshop.
Once I had determined my favourite concept, I used Adobe Fresco to paint the image. Unlike most of my paintings, for this one I started by tracing a rough outline of the subject. However, for the colour, shading and finer details I worked freehand.
MAGDALENE, 2020
This is the original piece for this collection. A portrait of the singer FKA Twigs, inspired by her album Magdalene. For this painting I painted freehand using oils on canvas.
STAGE, 2020
The second painting of this collection is of Beyonce. This piece takes inspiration from Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgement’, and Vecchio’s ‘Assumption of the Virgin’. I began by creating concepts for the composition in Photoshop, before painting freehand in oil on canvas.