Tenebrae, 1999, oil on canvas
Tenebrae, which is the Latin for darkness, refers to the three hours of darkness that occurred between 6 and 9 on the day Christ was crucified. I chose the darkness as a visual metaphor for grief, thus Tenebrae is a fitting title for my painting of the grief-stricken Mother Mary on the day of Christ’s death. …

Mother Mary convulses with grief in the foreground while another Mother Mary (we see her in two phases of torment, literally split in two by the ferocity of her feeling) pulls her from behind and throws her head back to utter a cry, which is nearly stifled by the blade of light coming over the horizon at her neck. The viewer must cross over the water (often a metaphor for rite of passage) to reach the side in which the landscape is calm and serene under a brilliant light, leaking from between the clouds. This is a sign of hope, as well as the promise of resurrection.

(left side of photo) St. Lucy: Patron Saint of Vision, 1993, oil on linen and canvas
Saint Lucy (d. circa 303 CE).of Syracuse was a virgin martyr who lived during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. At fourteen, she confessed to being a Christian and refused to marry a non-Christian merchant. A judge sentenced her to work as a prostitute, but her small body became so heavy that she could not be carried away to the brothel. Her eyes were gouged out, only to be miraculously restored more beautiful than before. Finally, she was killed by a sword thrust through her neck

St. Lawrence: Patron Saint of Cooks, 1994, oil on canvas
Saint Lawrence (d. 258 CE), a deacon, sold the Church’s treasures and gave the money to the poor after the execution of Pope Sixtus II by the Roman Emperor Valerian. When asked by the emperor for the Church’s coffers, Lawrence presented the poor people to Valerian instead. For this, Lawrence was burned to death on a gridiron. During the torture, Lawrence said, "Let my body be turned; one side is broiled enough," and later, "It is cooked enough. You may eat."

St. Clare: Patron of Television, 1998, oil on canvas
Saint Clare of Assisi (1193-1253), a contemporary of Saint Francis, was the founder of the Poor Clares, a monastic order for women. In 1958 Pope Pius XII proclaimed St. Clare the patron saint of television because it is said that one Christmas when she was too ill to leave her bed she saw and heard Christmas Mass -- even though it was taking place miles away.

St. Rita's Sweet Dream, 1998, oil on canvas
Rita of Cascia, Italy, lived in the late 14^th and early 15^th century. Although she requested to enter an Augustinian convent, at the age of twelve her parents married her to a "cruel and brutal man, well known in the neighborhood for his violent temper.’ She had two sons, both of whom died of illnesses after their father was murdered in a vendetta. Rita repeatedly requested admission to the convent, but was refused because she was not a virgin. Finally, at the age of 32, she took the habit and at age 60, she heard St. James della Marc preach on the Crown of Thorns. Shortly thereafter she received the stigma of the Crown. Her wound festered so terribly that she lived the rest of her life in seclusion. Upon her death, the stench vanished and her body gave off the scent of roses. She is the patron saint of desperate cases.

I first became interested in Rita, because her attribute is the rose. I decided to paint her when I learned that she is a survivor of domestic violence – someone with whom a great many women can identify and to whom they can turn for protection and hope. Because Rita was a mother, I painted her in a rocking chair. She rocks back in ecstatic reverie while receiving the stigma (a replication of Christ’s wounds) from the Crown of Thorns. Like Christ in Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ, she is oblivious to the pain inflicted upon her. The disembodied fists and head represent the acts of violence she suffered in her marriage. The notion of using the disembodied fists and head is borrowed directly from the Fra Angelico painting in which the personalities of Christ’s torturers and mockers are rendered inconsequential by merely representing their hands and the head of the mocker who spat upon Christ.

St. Sebastian, 1996, oil on canvas
I painted Sebastian for a number of reasons, one of which is my curiosity about depictions of Sebastian and the nude male. It is my observation that Sebastian is usually depicted as languishing against a tree or post to which he has been bound. The pose is often full of contrapposto and quite erotic, as though the experience was one of intense pleasure instead of intense pain.

The traditional approach to the nude male often leaves me cold. The figures appear feminized. They have curvy hips and doughy, hairless skin – characteristics of feminine beauty. I had to question my own concept of masculine beauty. At the time I was working on St. Sebastian (Fall 1996), I had the good fortune to see Tap Dogs, a group of male tap dancers from Australia who wear construction workers’ clothing while dancing. Not only were they outstanding performers, but their bodies looked incredibly appealing as they moved with power and grace in work boots, t-shirts, and cut-offs. I adapted their costumes to my male figures, and painted Sebastian with body hair and firm, muscled flesh.