It is always around but you can't always see it. Its presence ebbs and flows; it can be big and bloody, or barely visible and pale as driven snow. The moon is linked to madness and witchcraft--as well as to women, so it fits neatly into Monica Zeringue's Goddesses and Monsters series where female figures mingle with lunar mysticism. In Narcissus, above, a Zeringue-like nude gazes into a puddle of water and sees herself reflected as the full moon. Rendered in graphite, this luminously cool self portrait flanked by a series of detailed close ups of the moon rendered in graphite and dark beads on white primed linen. Blood Moon, depicted in deep crimson oils, beads and hair, is more dramatic and personal, as is Flesh Moon with its bodily aura of warm, moist organs secreted deep within the body. But Cusp, above left with its decorous white pigment, gold beads and flowery red wallpaper, evokes otherworldly harmony. Post Tenebras Lux, above, transforms her own visage into a vertiginous reflection of the ever shifting phases of the moon in a new example of the old mystical adage: "as above, so below."
Written by D. Eric Bookhardt