This illustration fuses the concept and icon that is Madonna. The original Madonna, of biblical fame, is overlayed with Madonna, the pop star who used her holy title and given name to question ideas of celebrity in a controversial way. Madonna, when she first emerged as a pop music singer in the 1980s shocked, and sometimes horrified her viewers by exploiting notions of race, class and sexuality in her progressive videos that were mostly, way beyond their era. In this piece, the artist herself recognizes this position and furthers it by circling back on the original Madonna, mother of Christ, to blur the lines between conservative and controversy. The viewer here is not sure if this is a religious image that has been doctored or a playful image that is merely using religious references and taking them one step beyond their original meaning. In this way, Stelcart leaves us confounded and forever questioning whether we should be shocked, amused or confused by this particular hybrid image.
Written by Anna Seaman