Evil Women


Jewish De-Translation Portraits
January – March 2021

De-translating women of biblical canon who are understood to be evil through Christian dis/mis-translation

This process used kosher materials and was inspired by traditional Jewish methods of sanctification and the Christian tradition of illuminated manuscripts. The collection includes Jewish papercuts, a pair of end-pages with harvested and pressed plants, and gilded garlic mini-books. The main content of the collection are illustrations re-imagining canonical genre paintings of these women from their demonizing depictions that are paired with short prose critiquing this dis-translation. The central illustration-prose pairings are of Lilith, Eve, Vashti and (H)Esther and colored with raw natural pigments.

Created in Bookmaking Praxis course at ECUAD

Photo of the collection produced for the project
Photo of the central collection produced for the project
Illustration-prose pairing of Eve
Unwrapping the gilded garlic mini-books