“Sacred Spaces” are the places we cherish, respect and even fear. In searching for these places, what we find is often mysteriously fortuitous – a moment of discovery about the things we hold dear and the things that inspire awe in us. The images in “Sacred Spaces” explore these places, people and objects that inhabit them.
Like the other images in the series, the first image of the veiled sanctuary extends an invitation to us as viewers to contemplate what might be going on in the mysterious world behind the curtains. The haunting unknown behind those curtains, the unspoken sermon from the vacant pulpit, the unfamiliar lying in wait, kept behind the gate, the electrical cord extending to a secret machine behind a closed door – all beg the question, what will be discovered there? More importantly, what do we imagine there?
The compound images throughout the series offer possibilities. The collision between each set of images confronts us with the themes we don’t talk about, themes we keep behind closed doors, enshrined in churches, and locked out of sight. Yet the poignancy of these themes – violence, sex, sacrifice, mortality – shows through in the things we choose to create and preserve. Statues, tattoos, shrines – even taxidermy – are captured in careful balance in each compound image; however, the whole of the two images together is greater than the sum of the parts. Each individual image shows something preserved – like love in the statue of the embracing couple, and holiness in the adjoining image of St. Beatrice. Another set of images shows the honorable soldier, attached to an image of expert marksmanship. But the combinations of the images offer new themes. The figure of the soldier becomes a solemn commentary on the violence of war when we must pin the bullet-riddled target from practice to his uniform, instead of a medal for valor. The statue of the lovers, for all their beauty, merely depicts a fleeting lust when juxtaposed with the death of even the purest young woman.
These are not the only possibilities. The single images, in all their inviting mystery, and the compound images, complex and provocative, offer a space for us to ponder a myriad of possible connections and to participate in the solemn as well as the jovial. The terror of lust and mortality is there for us to consider – but we can even have a bit of fun in the country music barroom, or laugh with the Munsters or the mermaid. Above all, the images are an opportunity to think about the things we, as human beings, keep – from spiritual traditions, to art in museums and beyond – and why we need to keep them.
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