'Held Sacred'

By Ann Nichols

annsnichols@aol.com

When Maggie McMahon, UC Foundation Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was planning her fall 2007 sabbatical, she decided to explore the concept of forgiveness.

The resulting body of artworks, presented in the style of Byzantine painting and icons, also tackles questions of innocence, violence, hatred, inequality, goodness and evil.

The traditional diptych icon, two panels joined by a hinge, often depicts images that are linked thematically such as the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Ms. McMahon used this same device to link murderer with victim; elements in both panels echo each other.

“This underscores the shared humanity of two figures,” she said. “My hope is that the viewer will consider perpetrator and victim as two members of the human family and will be led to consider what it would mean to forgive the perpetrator.

“The way to lay down victimhood is to forgive,” she said.

Last November, she had a solo exhibition of her icons at the University of South Carolina in Spartanburg. “Held Sacred: An Exploration of Forgiveness Through the Lens of Byzantine Iconography” was composed of 17 icons.

Ms. McMahon had spent the prior 18 months learning the intense and complex process of painting icons in egg tempera and acrylic gouache. Since icons are created for devotional purposes in the Orthodox Church, she began by depicting saints.

“I love Byzantine icons because of the proscribed colors, calligraphic line quality and flat painting,” she said.

Ms. McMahon even enjoys the time-consuming process of preparing her surface — a wooden panel sealed with layers of non-acrylic gesso that she sands to a smooth-as-glass finish. On this ground, she transfers a tracing of her previously prepared drawing. Shellac is painted on the areas surrounding this drawing, and sheets of 23-karat gold leaf are applied. Next, she paints the clothing and background, followed by the meticulous rendering of the face.

“I spent three weeks of a five-week residency at Hambidge Center on the same egg tempera icon because I had to scrape the face off 17 times,” said Ms. McMahon.

After the face is completed, the halo is painted, and the icon’s surface is sealed with boiled linseed oil and shellac.

The artist continues to add to her murderer/victim series. She has paired Byron De La Beckwith with Medgar Evers, Timothy McVeigh with Tylor Eaves and plans to base her next piece on Adolph Hitler and a victim of the Holocaust.