Unveiling (After Bernini)
Oil on Linen
60" x 36"
Dancer and choreographer Anne-Alex Packard remarks about the painting of St. Teresa in ecstasy: “All that remains is the shell of her body; the rest is gone.” The composition is drawn from Bernini. I am less interested in the sexual innuendos commonly attributed to Bernini -- and more interested in how the saint herself was experiencing her ecstacy. While painting, I was reading the "Life of St. Teresa of Avila by Herself." In describing her rapture, the 15th-century nun explains, “At times resistance has been impossible; my soul has been carried away, and usually my head as well, without my being able to prevent it.” That is why the head is missing.