By Alexandra Kilgore
2nd Place, Visual (2D), Create | Encounter 2020
Artist Statement:
This is a mixed-media collage made from magazine clippings, print outs, and marker titled “Protevangelia,” which I carried as a sign at the 2020 March for Life. I created the work while volunteering at a pro-life overnight for high school students hosted on my college campus, and as I tore scraps out of magazines into the wee hours of the morning, many curious teenage girls wandered over to ask what I was doing, which facilitated so many beautiful discussions about the sanctity of life, art as political protest, and the meaning of authentic feminism. Genesis 3:15 is often referred to as the “protoevangelium”, the first mention of the message of salvation in the Bible: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” The prophecy of the woman mentioned is plainly fulfilled in Mary, the Mother of God, whose intercession is still striking at the head of sins that affront the dignity of the human person: abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, racism, sexism, ableism, hate, discrimination, and all forms of violence. I chose to depict Our Lady as she appeared to St. Juan Diego not only due to my deep personal devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe but also because in this apparition Mary presented herself to an Indigenous man as a mixed-race woman clearly pregnant with the Christ child.