Paper: Angels: Self Portraits in a Gesture of Suffering and Transcendence

The figure in flight conjures up a familiar female archetype - an angel - an arbiter between human suffering and transcendence. The use of the female figure - long a staple of Western artistic iconography - may be interpreted in a contemporary context of womens issues or as a matriarchal figure embodying the worlds suffering. The Shrine of the Angels series utilizes color photo Xerox printouts of the source image for the Angels several incorporating a lighting element and on a scale that can collectively be installed as a shrine.These life-size female figures gesturing upward in supplication depict a range of human injuries that we endure. They have taken on a religious connotation when installed in churches and function as transcendence and closure in the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorial Project when the artist has included them in that project.