The Sinner
Size: 100 x 70, Edition 8
Size: 50 x 35, Edition 8
In The Sinner, the first work from the new series REVIVAL, with which she recently won the The International Lucas-Cranach-Award 2015 in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, there is an intriguing depiction of a multi-layered connection.
The main theme of the work is a pregnant woman sitting down. The title refers to the biblical story in which Christ protects a woman who is accused of adultery from her attackers, and confronts them with the imperfect nature of every human being. This puts the supposed sin in perspective and turns the fact into a universally human quality. This capacity is reinforced in Belkina’s work by the serene atmosphere and elegance the woman exudes; she protectively holds her pregnant belly in her hands as if she were holding the globe itself. The weight of the concept of sin is lifted and it becomes an intimate, innately human quality. At the same time the new life carried by the woman is still unspoilt and without sin; a blank canvas that will carry the traces of the choices made throughout the life of this new human being. In this way, the pregnant woman, modelled by Belkina herself, symbolises the ever renewing cycle of life, perfecting the imperfect nature of existence time and again.
For this work Katerina Belkina was inspired by a painting by the famous German renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Younger, called Christ and the adulteress (After 1532) from the collection of the Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg. By choosing a 16th century painting as an inspiration she once more tried to make a connection: a connection between past and present. She links the predominantly religious nature of the work of the Old Master to a contemporary, secular society in which she considers the concepts of sin and judgement more relevant than ever.
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