Description
Maureen Fleming
2016
Limited edition photograph: Signed, dated, and numbered by the artist
Giclee ink on archival print
Dimensions vary
The universal archetype of the Black Madonna, a woman born of a seed planted in the black earth, expresses an ancient notion of transcendent feminine power; that the mythology of the warrior and goddess cultures would collide was inevitable. When various Paleolithic tribes were forced to live in barren lands, they became nomads, conquering more fertile, agrarian lands, and moving on. In the process, they often destroyed virtually all evidence of the earth-based goddess cultures replacing them with male gods characterized by the “warrior” figure. In this vein, how do we understand both the mythology of the warrior and the values of the goddess cultures that thrived for centuries before the existence of wars of annihilation? How can we transcend this contradiction? ‘Invocation at Ruínas da Igreja’ in Itaporica, Brazil embodies this question.
