war & peace

Alessandra Maria’s “The Virgin, The Whore & The Mother” at Corey Helford Gallery.

Opening on Saturday, November 5th, 2016 at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, California is artist Alessandra Maria’s breathtaking solo exhibition “The Virgin, The Whore & The Mother.”

Throughout history icons have served to illustrate the predominant ideals of a given social group. In Abrahamic religions, feminine power has been embodied in three forms with few exceptions: the virgin, the whore, and the mother. Put another way: women’s most virtuous roles were defined insofar as their being an object or vessel for someone else.

Alessandra is driven by the prevalence of these outmoded concepts of feminine potential in contemporary society. The narratives of women in popular culture are still crafted around demonizing and dehumanizing ideas of what women can or should be. She believes an important means of addressing this problem entails going back to the source.

Numbered as a means of guiding the viewer’s journey, this body of work is an exploration of Eden without the traditional trichotomy and tells the story of the artist coming to terms with her whole being.

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