Gabe Sheen

Since March of 2009, I have been creating a series of photographs under the title The Passion Revisited: From Some Women’s Points of View, which willconsist of thirty-six narrative images. Traditionally, the Passion encompasses the last twelve hours of Jesus Christ’s abuse and suffering. This pivotal event in world history continues to be a source of debate, study,
and inspiration for many people. Also, there are numerous versions of the Passion in paintings, sculptures, and even in motion pictures. I want to make my version a unique conceptual and visual experience for viewers, rather than an old!fashioned literal repetition of religious images. In my reframing of the Passion, the story starts from the Creation to understand the background and the end of the long-term conflict between the divine and the evil. Setting up the plot of an impromptu play among a mother, her daughters, and their friends next door, I tried to find a happy-ending solution of the conflict through a female nature, which is fundamentally caring and forgiving. Also, in my interpretation, Jesus’ passion and death was not just for three days, but for the entire time that he lost his consciousness; from the moment of being implanted in the Virgin Mary’s womb, to rising from death.

The process for this project is a straight digital. Being influenced stylistically by both Pictorialism and Surrealism in photography, I use diffused lights, soft focus, long or multiple exposures, limited colors, and painterly finishes as my creative choices for this project. I have finished the first twelve experimental images and titled them temporarily The Passion Herstory. I will continue creating the main thirty-six images until the end of 2009 and the completed work will be published officially in Spring 2010.