The Paradigm of Persephone

The six series of six print impressions that make up the exhibition The Paradigm of Persephone visually interplay the image of the pomegranate fruit and photographic imagery of Greece while referencing how the myths, superstitions, archetypes, and histories still impact visual storytelling.

Within the images of halves, one can imagine the god Hades abducting Persephone through the split earth, dragging her into the Underworld to be his Queen. In the curves of the arils, the six seeds that provided Persephone nourishment and her fate are inked with luscious color. Within there lies a two-fold purpose of visual temptation and warning: how can one survive life’s ordeals where the hunger for freedom, to stay alive and sustain nourishment persist?

The dualities of the split fruit impressions also reflect upon Persephone’s role as “Maiden” within the Greek archetype of the triple goddess. The Maiden, Persephone, fruitful; the Mother, Demeter, nurturing; and Crone, Hecate, barren but wise, as a nuanced conceptional link throughout empty spaces and dense applications of hues reminiscent of the fruit’s surrounding pithy skin.

These works, created as a result of my sabbatical summer residency at the SkopArt Foundation of Art in Skopelos, Greece, and travels through Athens, Delphi, and multiple locations on the island of Crete, including Heraklion and the Palace of Knossos, present as self-portraiture and as an homage to the vanitas still-life genre. The in-situ research I gained during this time both sustained my connections to international artists and allowed me to go into a collaborative creative studio environment pursuing innovative experimentation with various printing techniques on paper while giving more context to the global perspective I maintain in my concept-driven artwork.