Mother and Child

This was my fifth and final piece that directly corresponded to my portfolio theme. It resembles the understanding I had after the years of religious turmoil: both religions can coexist and have many of the same overarching ideas. To showcase this, I decided to use one of the most pure and wholesome ideals from both religions: the sacred mother and child. In Catholicism, this unfolds as the popular trope of Virgin Mary and Jesus. In Hindu counterpart is Parvati, the Goddess of fertility, love and devotion, and her son, Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Starting off on this piece, I knew I wanted to use a traditional Catholic work as a template, and make changes throughout representing Hindu figures and modern times. I used “The Madonna of the Lillies” an oil painting done by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1899, as my reference picture. Looking at both images side by side, you can see that I used the same positioning of the figures as Bouguereau does, as well as representing similar expressions. I did, however, make the noticeable change character. I replaced Virgin Mary with Parvati and Jesus with Ganesh. For more Hindu references, I decided to create lotus and flower imagery in the traditionally solid nimbuses. From a design perspective, I continued the work of flowers in the background to make this work a bit more detail oriented. I modernized both of the religions through stylistic choices in the mediums of pens and pops of color.