Heavenly Bodies; Home; Remember Her

Heavenly Bodies, 2024

In this work, I engage with the visual language of historical Christian iconography to explore the ways in which women’s bodies and narratives have been framed within religious art. The figures, adorned with golden halos reminiscent of saints, exist in a space that is both sacred and subversive. Their nudity, often depicted in religious art as either a mark of purity or sin, resists easy categorization here.

The presence of the apple—a symbol deeply tied to the story of Eve—invites reflection on how interpretations of biblical texts have shaped perceptions of women. While some traditions have cast women as bearers of transgression, others recognize the complexity of these narratives, offering a more nuanced view of responsibility and agency. Across history, women have been both constrained by religious structures and vital to them, shaping spiritual life in ways often overlooked. The figures in this piece acknowledge this tension. Their expressions and postures reject victimhood; they hold their space with quiet defiance and autonomy. The hand placed in solidarity and reassurance suggests a rewriting of the story, one where women are active participants in their own narratives.

Through this piece, I invite viewers to reconsider the inherited interpretations of femininity, sanctity, and power within religious and art historical contexts. What happens when we look at these stories anew? What do we reclaim when we redefine the sacred?

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Home, 2022

This print explores the relationship between place, memory, and belonging within the architecture of the sacred. The composition centers on the sanctuary of my home church, Greater Chicago Church. Sadly, this church no longer exists, making this piece somewhat of a memorial for me. The figures within the stained glass glow with an aura of reverence, yet their silhouettes remain undefined—suggesting a universal presence, a reflection of those who have stood in this space before.

“As it is, they desire a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one.”1 This verse speaks to a longing beyond earthly spaces, a yearning for a home not built by human hands but shaped by divine promise. Home questions what it means to find sanctuary within institutions shaped not only by divine revelation, but also by history, tradition, and power. For some, the doors of a church represent welcome, warmth, and faith; for others, they may stand as barriers, reminders of exclusion or restraint. The high-contrast nature of the print speaks to these tensions—between presence and absence, past and present, invitation and boundary.

This work asks: Is home a place, a memory, a feeling? And when does it cease to be one? If our earthly sanctuaries fade, does the longing for home remain?

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Remember Her, 2024

Remember Her is a meditation on presence, erasure, and the complex ways in which women’s identities have been shaped, constrained, and sanctified within religious and historical narratives. This series employs traditional iconographic elements—gold leaf, halos, and text—to engage with and reinterpret the visual language of devotion, acknowledging both the reverence and limitations historically placed upon women in these traditions.

The left panel presents a figure whose body is simultaneously revealed and obscured, as though emerging from or dissolving into time itself. Her stance is assertive, yet ephemeral, challenging the passive depictions often associated with female subjects in sacred art. The gold leaf, a symbol of divinity, does not merely adorn but instead disrupts, suggesting both veneration and fracture.

In the right panel, a solemn face emerges from a muted, fresco-like surface, her presence haunting yet resilient. The phrase “Home is where her God is” serves as both a reflection and a critique. Following the Reformation, as Protestantism rejected monastic life, convents—once a refuge where women could exercise autonomy through scholarship, leadership, and devotion—were systematically dissolved. With no alternative spiritual vocation, women were increasingly confined to the domestic sphere, their faith expected to manifest within the boundaries of home and family rather than in public or ecclesiastical life. This shift marked a loss of female presence in institutional religion, reinforcing the perception of women’s holiness as something to be lived out in service to husbands and children rather than in independent devotion.

Remember Her is a reckoning with this history—an act of remembering and reclaiming the spiritual and intellectual agency once denied to women. It asks viewers to consider the weight of tradition, the power of presence, and the stories that linger beneath the surface of what we have been told.

Lily Leman