Laura Stephens

Alstonville High School

IMMACULATE SUFFERING

Drawing

Graphite pencil on paper

My body of work is a critique of Christianity's justification, exacerbation and deification of female suffering. Women are sinful only in our likeness to God; the knowledge Eve's apple bestowed, our divine creative ability. Our immorality is understood in the femaleness of original sin; our inherent fallenness. My work represents the ethereal Madonna and Child as the Christian epitome of feminine morality - the paradoxically virgin mother. Portraits of Our Lady of Sorrows gazing towards the Madonna convey the desire to meet unattainable moral expectations and the subsequent guilt of perceived inadequacy. God appropriates femininity before damning us for it.

My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Ludovico Pogliaghi, central door of Duomo di Milano; Michelangelo, La Pieta; Kris Kuksi, Adoration of the Magi.