Ekphrasis

When Mary and Joseph decided to stage their home for a quick holiday sale, little did they suspect that Junior would jump the gun and proceed to his own crucifixion just as potential buyers began to arrive in the form of gift-bearing Magi. In this depiction of the popular holiday story, Mary puppeteers a mermaid—a true fisher of men—as it is consumed by a sports-equipment Magus. Elsewhere a Magus from the east appears as a Chinese festival dragon, and a flightless polar-region Magus brings dynamite in tow while offering an icosahedron as his gift for this Nativity gone terribly wrong. Joseph illuminates a butterfly, symbol of the eventual resurrection, and a mouse head appears where the blood shed for man’s sins intersects the flashlight beam in true cruciform fashion. Fun for the whole Christian family, this work sets the bar ever higher for religious and spiritual art in our nascent 21st century.