_The Glorious Mysteries: The Assumption of Mary Into Heaven_

 

The Glorious Mysteries: The Assumption of Mary Into Heaven

Oil on cradled canvas

6' x 4.5'

December 11 - 20, 2020

In this painting, Mary is assumed into heaven above a tropical, Philippine landscape. She is dressed in 1920s carnival queen attire; this was a huge, annual pageant that was looked forward to in San Fernando, Pampanga where I was born, through the onset of the Second World War. 

The ribbons round Mary's waist are representative of the contemporary movements for gender equality, breast cancer awareness, and the fight against domestic violence on women and children, which she brings to heaven like prayer banners.

I deliberately syncretized Mary's figure with that of Chang-O, the legendary, Chinese goddess of the moon, who obtained from her husband the elixir of immortality and then ascended to the moon. Interestingly, the Catholic feast day of the Assumption, August 15, is closely followed, from mid-August to September depending on the lunar year, by the Chinese Moon/Mooncake Festival. It was typical of the early Catholic Church to syncretize its feast days with "pagan" festival dates.

The planet Venus, a symbol of woman, shines at the top of the painting.

The pandemic is still on and I continue to refuse to admit outsiders and models into my studio. My granddaughter Aubrey sat for the figure of Mary.

The auditory stimulus I used while making this painting is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Oxwnf1lPE. Do listen to it while viewing the painting.

_THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES: ASCENSION_

THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES: ASCENSION

Oil on cradled canvas

4.5’ x 6’

November 10 – 30, 2020 

This is Painting #19 for Maryhill School of Theology.

 

I deliberately omitted the five wounds on the body of Christ. I believe that we resurrect with whole and healthy bodies—otherwise the blind would resurrect as blind, the maimed would resurrect as maimed, and the brain-damaged would resurrect as brain-damaged. Besides, it is possible that early painters, especially during the Renaissance period, depicted the resurrected Christ with five wounds to distinguish him from pagan subjects such as Apollo, Dionysos, and Ganymede, which were still popular at the time alongside those with scenes from the life of Christ commissioned by the likes of the Medicis. (Note, as a matter of fact, while looking at the painting, that the figure could very well be that of Apollo, Dionysos, or Ganymede.)

 

In this painting, the Jewish merkabah is superimposed on the ascending Christ as a modern touch; its practitioners claim that the enraptured shall ascend—body, soul, and spirit—to heaven in star-shaped vessels of light.

We are still within the pandemic period and I continue to refuse to admit outsiders and models into our house. Jazz sat for the figure of Christ--all of my figures of Christ are proportioned to eight heads while all other figures, to seven heads--as he did for the figure of Christ in Feast of Tents.

This was the auditory stimulus I used while making this painting. Do listen to it while viewing the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMf3wKBCPo