DigitalBondage: Portraits

St Stephen

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2012

model: Steve Williams

Saint Stephen was the first martyr of the New Testament.
The protomartyr of Christianity, is venerated as a saint in the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Stephen's name is derived from the Greek language Stephanos, meaning "crown".
Traditionally, Stephen is invested with a crown of martyrdom.
He is often depicted in art with stones and the martyrs' palm.
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St Lucilla

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2012

model: Medea Teixeira

Saint Lucilla was the daughter of Nemesius, a deacon.Lucilla was blind from her birth, and was taken by her father to be cured and baptized by St. Stephen, the Bishop of Rome. Many others were converted and baptized on account of the miracle. Learning of this deed, Emperor Valerian ordered Nemesius to be imprisoned and Lucilla to be given to a wicked woman, named Maxima. However, after a few days, Nemesius and Lucilla were taken without trial to the temple of Mars in the Via Appia in Rome, and there Lucilla's throat was cut, before her father's eyes.

St Comasia

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2012

model: Lana Durjava

Saint Comasia was a roman martyr probably lived between the II and IV century. Her body was transferred from the catacombs of St. Agnes in Via Nomentana in 1645 to Martina Franca, in the Basilica of St. Martin. When the sacred convoy arrived in Martina Franca, an heavy rain started and the rainstorm was so strong that the procession was stopped and forced to take refuge in the chapel.A similar event occurred in 1714, in Naples during a procession with her relics. The Saint was by far '600 always invoked in times of drought. The last time that the bones of the Saint were traveling in procession through the streets of the country was on July 2000 and even in that occasion a storm happened.An old saying, still used today, about the connection betwen the rain and the Saint is: "a 'ssot u curpe de Santa Cumasie", it is mentioned during an heavy rain and it means: "they have dragged out the body of Saint Comasia"

St Catherine of Alexandria

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2012

model: Tara Byakko

Also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius.

The emperor condemned Catherine to death on the spiked breaking wheel, an instrument of torture. The wheel was miraculously destroyed, however, in answer to St. Catherine's prayer, and so Maxentius had to settle for beheading her.

In art She can usually be easily recognised as she is crowned, as befits her rank as a princess, and often holds a segment of her wheel or a sword as an attribute.

St Jeanne D'Arc

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

model: Klara Murnau

St Edith Stein

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

model: Ewelina Koscielniak

Saint Edith Stein (StTeresia Benedicta of the Cross), was a German Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. Born into an observant Jewish family but an atheist by her teenage years, she converted to Christianity in 1922, was baptized into the Catholic Church and was received into the Discalced Carmelite Order as a postulant in 1934. Although she moved from Germany to the Netherlands to avoid Nazi persecution, in 1942 she was arrested and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she died in the gas chamber.

St Lucia

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

model: Ilaria

With a name derived from lux, lucis "light", St Lucy is the patron saint of those who are blind.

Hagiography tells us that Lucy was a Christian during the Diocletian persecution.

She consecrated her virginity to God, refused to marry a pagan, and had her dowry distributed to the poor.

Her would-be husband denounced her as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse, Sicily. Miraculously unable to move her or burn her, the guards took out her eyes with a fork.

In another version, Lucy's would-be husband admired her eyes, so she tore them out and gave them to him, saying, "Now let me live to God".

In art, her eyes sometimes appear on a tray that she is holding.

St Apollonia

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

model: Amanda Papoyans

Saint Apollonia was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Decius. According to legend, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems. in art, she is seen holding tongs.

St Agnese

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

inspired by a photo of Luca Elio Rimatori

http://www.lucaeliorimatori.com/

Saint Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility.

The Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, and on Agnes' refusal he condemned her to death.
As Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel.
Various versions of the legend give different methods of escape from this predicament. In one, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind.
When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat.
Agnes is depicted in art with a lamb, as her name resembles the Latin word for "lamb", agnus.

Amber / St Filomena

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

Her veneration began in the early 19th century after the archaeological discovery in the Catacombs of Priscilla of the bones of a young woman, which were interpreted as those of a martyr. The loculus was closed with three terra cotta tiles, on which was the following inscription: lumena paxte cumfi. It was and is generally accepted that the tiles were in a wrong order and that the inscription originally read, with the leftmost tile placed on the right: pax tecum Filumena.

Filomena was the daughter of a king in Greece who, with his wife, had converted to Christianity. When the Emperor Diocletian threatened to make war on her father, he went with his family to Rome to ask for peace. The Emperor fell in love with the young Philomena and, when she refused to be his wife, he subjected her to a series of torments: scourging, from whose effects two angels cured her; drowning with an anchor attached to her, but two angels cut the rope and raised her to the river bank; being shot with arrows, but on the first occasion her wounds were healed, on the second the arrows turned aside, and on the third, they returned and killed six of the archers, and several of the others became Christians. Finally the Emperor had her decapitated. The two anchors, three arrows, the palm and the lily flower on the tiles found in the tomb were interpreted as symbols of her martyrdom.

Laura / St Crispina

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

Saint Crispina was a martyr who suffered during the Diocletian

persecution. At the time of the persecution she was brought before the
proconsul; on being ordered to sacrifice to the gods she declared she
honoured only one God.
Her head was shaved at the command of the judge, and she was exposed
to public mockery, but she remained steadfast in the Faith. She was
then condemned to death and beheaded.

Charlie / St Barbara

50x50 cm

Giclée print on canvas
2011

This portrait is especially done for an exhibition with the theme
"Martyrs" that will take place on Nov 2011 in London.
Saint Barbara is the patron saint of artillerymen, military engineers,
miners and others who work with explosives because of her old legend's
association with lightning.
She is invoked against thunder and lightning and all accidents arising
from explosions of gunpowder.
She is the patron of the Italian Navy and is also recognized as the
patron saint of U.S. Navy.
According to the hagiographies the whip used to torture her
miraculously became a peacock feather, so it became part of her
iconography.