I wanted to play on the idea of Mary Mother of Jesus as a young girl, and with the obsession the Christian institution has over the notion of virginity. I painted my good friend Raena, with whom I always shared a critical eye in our society and an affinity for the outer edges of things. Turns out she and I are - as far as I know - the only graduates from our secondary school ever to come out as well. Perhaps that's why we got on so well growing up.
Anyway, she's got this regal fragility to her - Victorian, really - this sort of translucent character to her skin that I just can't get over. I wanted that warm and natural glow of her skin juxtaposed against the stark white of the halo.
Also, and obviously, the orchid is meant to evoke sex... I love orchids, they're to me the perfect coalescence of the cock and the vagina. It's like androgyny on a stalk. And so fragile and foreign looking. I could go on for miles. Acrylic on canvas.
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