Judith Stories

The Judith Stories

This series of paintings is based on the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi’s treatment of the Old Testament story of Judith and Holofernes. In Mon Armor ( a play on the words armor and amour) I used Wonderwoman and Judith beheading Holofernes to represent the simple oppositional metaphors of superego and id. In The Judith Stories: Without Voice, I worked with a standing Judith figure whose defensive and protective gesture seemed to define her personal boundaries. I thought of the beheading scene as a metaphor for a mind/body split and for the fragmentary nature of identity. Here, the heroic figure of Judith represents a romantic notion of a “real,” a longed for but inaccessible figure of wholeness. I collapsed the figures of Judith and Holofernes into one, beheading Judith and overlaying her with contemporary images.

— Susan Brenner