Ruah Edelstein
Artist
Madonna Series
Los Angeles | 2024
Reimagining Madonna and Child as an internal paradox: I am the Madonna, and I am the child.
The one who holds and the one who needs holding are one and the same
№ 1.
mixed media on canvas | 60 × 40 in | 152 × 102 cm
№ 2.
mixed media on canvas | 22 × 25 in | 56 × 64 cm
№ 3.
mixed media on canvas | 16 × 16 in | 41 × 41 cm
№ 4.
mixed media on canvas board | 14 × 11 in | 36 × 30 cm
Highly stylized forms, deliberately irreverent color, the paintings move the motif away from religious representation and into a psychic space of devastation, refuge, and endurance.
The child returns again and again to the Madonna’s lap, yet it is the self-returning to its own holding, as if a higher register of being were gathering the desperate self into its arms.In one work, the Madonna vanishes, leaving only the child in a scream-like state, where personal helplessness meets the wounded world.