With this image, I was trying to unite all of the possible opposites conveyed in the polyvalent image of the feminine. The central image to me is the most intriguing....... I wanted to make a visual allusion to the giving of life to Adam (sistine chapel)...but here we have the young virgin (or harlot!).... perhaps temple priestess.... submitting to her male consort....(her God?). So much of this lies entirely in the mind of the beholder. To some this entire image is the height of blasphemy......to me it is a heiroglyph of the deepest of mysteries.
There is a passage in the Nag Hammadi which describes the Gnostic Sophia ...using her voice. Below is a brief excerpt:
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one..
I am the whore and the holy one..
I am the wife and the virgin,.
I am the mother and the daughter.....
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.
About the two icons in the corners......the one on the right is from the Middle east...a fertility goddess. The one on the left is from ancient Celtic Britain......an early mother goddess (pulling open her own vagina).......none of that is ever to be seen in Christian iconography.
John Meluch was born in 1948 in the once industrial town of Lorain, Ohio. His earliest memories include the nightly fireworks of a nearby steel plant, the rumble of locomotives in his backyard, and the distant chatter of shipyard riveters......all a distant memory now. He has worked at several careers including: teacher, shipyard worker, graphic artist. He presently resides in
Lakewood, Ohio where he teaches High School English and also does freelance
digital graphics and photography. He has most recently collaborated with
British 3-D digital artist Tom Grimes.
