Painting Through Transformation: Creating a Modern Sheela-na-Gig
This piece is part of my ongoing Radical Metamorphosis collection, exploring feminine transformation through the collision of ancient symbolism, pop culture nostalgia, and lived experience.
There’s a painting that witnessed one of the most radical transformations of my life. I started it before I knew I was pregnant. I worked on it through months of inner turmoil and isolation during pregnancy.
Then it sat, watching me, as I navigated that first crazy year of motherhood. When I finally decided to return and finish the painting, I realized what I’d actually created: a totem for everything I’d been through.
Where Ancient Meets Y2K
The central figure is inspired by Sheela-na-Gig images - the mysterious carved figures found on churches and castles across Western Europe, particularly in Ireland and Britain. If you’ve never seen one, they’re… confronting. Explicitly feminine, often considered grotesque, these figures squat and display their vulvas in what feels like both invitation and warning.
Nobody knows exactly what they mean or why medieval stone masons put them on sacred buildings, but there’s something about them that’s both protective and transgressive. They don’t apologize for the female body. They just are what they are. Raw and undeniable.
