ABSOLUTION

©2012 Stephanie Cunningham

Sandblasted Glass, Steel Bases, Paper

63 x 21.75 x 3.5 inches



Absolution addresses duality in multiple forms including life and death, virtue and sin, confession and absolution, half empty and half full. Viewers are invited to submit a confession or offering at “altars” that reference classic sins and virtues etched on half empty / half full glasses. The viewer is asked to reflect on the binary relationships imposed by the ultimate one: life and death.

This work was inspired by a visit to a prayer wall outside the House of Mary in Ephesus, Turkey, the work of Joseph Campbell, and a passage in Milan Kundera’s novel “The Joke” in which a communist official describes the development of secular rituals in place of religious ones to placate the human need to mark the passage of life’s events.