Artworks / Pietà

Pietà (2012)

Associated Press (AP) wire-photo depicting an Afghan woman at the funeral of her son, overlaid with ultramarine pigment sourced from lapis lazuli mines in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan.

Due to its scarcity and value during the Renaissance, lapis lazuli was reserved for painting the robes of the Virgin Mary in Christian iconographic scenes. Here, pure blue pigment veils the subject of the photograph, leaving a caption as the only desc<x>ription of its figurative content.

The work also makes formal reference to the process of 'redaction' in censoring government documents.