My daughter Danielle was 14 when my son Gabriel was born in 1989. I had heard the Madonna gave birth to Jesus at the age of 14. True or not, this caused a seed that had lain dormant for years to germinate. I now had before me the perfect models: the angelic child and the serene fourteen-year-old Madonna. In time allowed between commissions, I began to execute my long-awaited project. It seemed to me a good time for a Resurrection, for the following reasons.

 

Ecclesiastical Renaissance painting was replaced by secular works towards the end of the 16th century. Apart from a few individuals, the Pre-Raphaelites were the last group to sporadically re-examine paintings revolving around the story of Jesus. In the 20th century Modernism rejects religion in favour of individual authenticity expressed through formal innovation. The Western avant-garde became progressively more secular, oriented towards concept and the invention of new forms of expression.

 

My plan was to embark on an exegesis of sorts, to create an icon each year, using my children as models. I wanted to explore the story of Mary and Jesus from a new angle, emphasizing their earthliness and common humanity, to record the natural development of the holy pair yearly through the lens of my own lived experience of motherhood, in a contemporary quasi-Photorealist style. I did these paintings free from financial considerations. They embellish my home.

 

I realise being brought up Christian is arbitrary. If I had been brought up Hindu, I would be painting Vishnu. I have no interest in sacrilege, but my icons do not focus on what I see as the mythology surrounding Jesus’s birth, life and death, the biblical doctrine reinforced by the Renaissance. The aspect of Jesus’s story the icons focus on, is that he was just a man, a son of a mother, trapped in flesh, living a life. What set him aside was that he had a vision, to devote his few years roaming the earth to guide humanity to a kinder way of treating fellow human beings. The counter intuitive idea of loving one’s enemies, is wisdom on a level of genius that is difficult to comprehend, let alone practice, especially in these snide and aggressive times.

 

Through these icons I hope to invoke a reminder of Jesus’s value system. Atheism has gleaned traction in the West. There is no obvious solution to any moral code, other than pragmatism related to evolution and survival, inherent in this understanding of the meaning, or lack thereof, of life. Even for those who choose to “believe” in science, while we fumble through to conclusive and indisputable revelations as to what on earth we are doing on earth, and how, why and when exactly it all began long before the big bang, we need to deal on a daily basis with ideas on how best to treat our fellow man.

 

In the Western world, which I occupy, I believe Jesus’s code of ethics is hard to beat.