Printed on archival, 100% cotton Hahnemühle Museum Etchings paper. 

Limited edition run of 50. Each signed and numbered by the artist. 

8x8" (paper), pre-matted to 12x12". Matted using museum quality cotton mat-board, and ready to be placed in an 12x12" frame.

Original: watercolor and ink on Arches cold-press paper, 2017.

CONCEPT:

"Mandorla" means "almond" in Italian. I became interested in this shape while studying early Byzantine art: holy beings were often portrayed with their whole bodies encompassed by an almond-shaped golden halo (called a mandorla in religious art terms). I love this shape in nature, too-- the oblong, egg-like, yonic forms we see all around us.

Though I first noticed the mandorla in Byzantine religious art, to me the shape has come to represent the female form, the vulva. Its presence in religious art only added a layer of conviction to that symbolic connection: yes, of course the mandorla/female form is sacred, and would be painted in gold. And so, I borrowed and edited the Byzantine symbol to mean something else in my own work, namely the holiness of the female body and spirit.

This prompted a set of pieces playing on the mandorla shape. I wanted to create a piece of art that drew the viewer's eye inward, into the negative space at the center of the mandorla. Life -- in this case, magnolias and other Louisiana-centric foliage-- grow outward from the mandorla.

The Mandorla series is meant to engage the viewer in meditation on the female form and the creation of life (though it should be noted: at the center of it all, all that verdant life, there's emptiness and negative space).

If you like this piece, you can look at the other pieces in the Mandorla series: Pecan and Oak and Ferns.