FKA ABC Community Gallery

Featuring Olivia Delisle | June – September 2023 

“These drawings come from an ongoing project based on “pieta” (literally “pity” or “compassion”) imagery. This imagery focuses on an embrace or a holding, often a mother and a child. Unlike Michelangelo’s La Pieta, which may be considered the ultimate depiction of this moment, my drawings often depict a woman clutching, squeezing, despairing. Michelangelo’s Mary on the other hand neither grasps nor smothers but rather holds while simultaneously letting go.

Her arms remain open, palm facing up, head slightly tilted down but not in anguish–she does not wail. Her sorrow is deeper than a viewer can imagine, yet she accepts and resigns herself to the death of her son. There is no anger in her countenance. My work on the other hand shows despair, refusal to release, clinging onto what is gone in sorrowful defiance. I draw such images over and over almost as a form of ritual. Perhaps it is an attempt to face what I consider to be the greatest sorrow imaginable.”