Between Knowledge, Motherhood, and the Sacred

Madonna da Sabedoria

This series revisits the enduring iconography of the Madonna and Child, reinterpreting it through a contemporary photographic language. Rooted in a tradition that spans centuries, from early devotional paintings to Renaissance masterworks, these images explore the symbolic and emotional weight of motherhood as both a human and cultural construct.

At the center of the work is a duality: the act of care and the pursuit of knowledge. The maternal figure is depicted not only as a source of nourishment, but also as an intellectual presence, engaged in reading while nurturing. This gesture challenges traditional representations, where the Madonna is often positioned as passive or purely symbolic, instead proposing a figure that is active, aware, and self-defined.

Visually, the series draws from classical composition, the use of drapery, frontal positioning, and the halo as a marker of sanctity, while introducing a contemporary sensibility through gaze, posture, and presence. The result is an image that exists between reverence and reinterpretation.

Rather than recreating religious imagery, the work engages with its visual language to question how we construct ideas of femininity, knowledge, and devotion today.