I Lock the Door Upon Myself

This piece was inspired by several different sources. Largely references to the Virgin Mary. In Christianity, the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, is often adorned with white lilies to represent her purity. She also is traditionally wearing blue, to represent her royal standing in Heaven, transcendence, and the mystery of the divine.

The work is also inspired by it’s namesake by Fernand Khnopff: I Lock the Door Upon Myself (1891). In response to Christina Rossetti poem where it reads in the last stanza:

I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out;
but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?

The combination of these pieces are part of my own journey of spirituality, faith, and the relationship with self. I recall my art history professor, Heather Graham, once explained how in certain Christian paintings, the subjects were not allowed to express too much grief over the death of Jesus Christ. This was because if they were too distressed, it meant they had no faith. As someone who used to express a very deep amount of grief, depression, and sadness — this struck me. This piece is a kind of dedication to the human heart. An ode to the heaviness, the heartbreak we all experience, specifically to those who have died.