Melusine

Mixed media photographic collage on cradled wood panel.

36x48x2"

Through the Retrieval series, I work against the inherited iconography of medieval stained glass, recovering the feminine presence it was built to suppress. Each piece layers my own photography — shot across locations in France — with archival materials, returning the stained glass form to what it was shaped to obscure: women not as symbol or margin, but as origin. These are not reconstructions of a lost past. They are retrievals — what cultural memory would hold if it had never been severed from its source.

In Melusine, I wanted to respond to The Morrigan, which I created a month earlier. While The Morrigan recreated a rose window that called to the primordial feminine, Melusine becomes the portal, open and returning that energy to the world. I drew inspiration from old stories, holy wells, and ancient ruined castles where I spent much time exploring in France and Scotland. There’s a nod here as well to Polish novelist Andrzej Sapkowski (of Witcher fame) and his incredible worlds that inspire me constantly.