Memorare

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Comment by Julie A. Struck on November 11, 2011 at 3:58pm

All thirty-two of my Master of Fine Arts artworks were metaphorical portraits of my family, and me. One entire wall consisted of diptychs of my siblings as saints, and opposite them hung eight Stations, one for each sibling, inspired by the Catholic Stations of the Cross, Jesus' public suffering. The other two walls held large triptychs depicting my siblings as followers and my mother as the object of worship and fear.  In addition to The Casualties of Motherhood, I created a triptych of my mother and brothers, referencing a famous Northern Renaissance painting illustrating the death of the Virgin Mary.  In it the Virgin Mary is my mother surrounded by my brothers, her apostles. And then there were my seventeen self-portraits, tiny fragments in comparison to the other large, multi-paneled artworks. And where was my father in all this? He was everywhere, in every single artwork: fragments of Michelangelo's David, strange penile mushroom groves, dark doorways and distances, and hands, especially hands.