Two Icons of St. Julian of Norwich
These two icons were made for a class in my senior year of undergraduate education. The prompt was to make two artworks with one being a “guilty pleasure” using materials of themes you would not consider for traditional critiques.
I made the more traditional icon of Julian of Norwich first, with my limited painting ability. It is painted on wood with acyrlic and flashe. I want to be clear that while it is done in a traditional style, and I refer to it as the “traditional” icon, I make no claims that it is a traditional icon, as what is defined as an Icon traditionally is more complicated and specific and has many rules that I do not follow. In addition, Icons are not something that traditionally have statements. Nevertheles here we are.
These works fall into a long tradition of artmaking, a tradition that involves copying of patterns and colors to signify certain figures or scenes. As such, many icons look similar. The traditional icon is one of these. It is an amalgamation of other icons of Julian. By contrast the second icon is very different. I don’t even know if it counts as an icon in any sense, though I certainly see it as one. It is my “contemporary” icon, based on the statue of St. Julian located at Norwich Cathedral, with an addition of a cat.
While the “traiditonal” icon uses earth tones and paintn the “contemporary” icon uses bright vibrant colors, marker, glitter, and string. They also have very different sizes, with the traditional one being about 9” x 12” (I am estimating) and the contemporary one being 19” x 24”. This difference in sizes reflects the materials I had on hand, not the feeligns about the icons themselves.
As for the text displayed on the icons, the “traiditonal” icon usess the text, “All shall be well”. These words are possibly Julian’s most famous, and are borne from her question about sin. To Julian sin is something only recognizable for the suffering it causes, but she says it has no substance or portion of being because God created everything that does, and God did not create sin. The line is saying “yes, evil happens, bad things happen, but it’s going to be okay” IN the “contemporary” icon, many more quotes including the all shall be well section are included in the curves from the Hazelnut. More important than the text however in this icon, is the feeling I try to impart with it. I tried to capture the meaning the phrase “all shall be well” gives me. It is both a phrase of relief and a phrase of radical acceptance. It encapsulates so much joy for me, that I try to show in the larger piece.
In Peace
Xi
