MUSEE DE NOUVELLE RENAISSANCE 1995 - 2001

Musee de Nouvelle Renaissance was conceived of as an installation of a faux museum room, complete with walls painted deep red, where hung elaborately framed oil paintings based on Renaissance themes. While much of western art is sexist, Mary Ellen chose to recast Renaissance art because it is considered by most people to be “real art,” art about beauty and ideals and faith. She intended to expose these for the culturally constructed patriarchal values they are.  

And so she reimagined the myths, and borrowed freely from artists such as Sabastiano Palombo, Lorenzo diCredi, Guilio Romano, Raphael and Botticelli, as well as other ancient sources. The people depicted in the paintings are primarily herself and friends and family. Notable exceptions are the angel of The Annunciation, who is anti-abortion fanatic Randall Terry (fetus in hand), and the Holy Child of Madonna and Child, who bears the face of a two-year old girl she saw standing alone in a park in Korea. Her parents were 100 feet away, having a picture taken with their baby boy. She, as a girl, was not included in the family photo.  So Mary Ellen took a picture of her and enshrined her as the Holy Child.