Embracing Megdalene, 2024

Historians posit that the historic Mary Magdalene was an unmarried Hebrew woman who came from the small fishing village of Magdala on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Magdalene became one of Jesus’s most devoted supporters and disciples. The Bible recounts that Magdalene was exorcised of the “seven demons” by Jesus. Magdalene became a healer herself and perhaps Jesus’s closest apostle and his “beloved companion.” The Bible also recognizes Mary Magdalene as present at his crucifixion and his burial. Magdalene was the first to see Jesus upon his resurrection. She later became one of his greatest evangelists.

Wiggins embraces Mary Magdalene as a complex heroine to study, reflect upon, embody and portray for the HEROINES project. Magdalene has been projected as both a repentant sinner and a saint throughout the millennia. Wiggins portrays Magdalene in an ecstatic state in the images Embraced by Angels I and II. Here, her attendant angels lie curved around her body, holding her reverently. All are adorned by bouquets of (fake) flowers in pastel shades. These images are inspired by the medieval text the Golden Legend. In this ancient story Magdalene lives out her final years in a cave in Southern France in prayer and contemplation. Angels visit several times a day and carry her to heaven where she is nourished with celestial music.

In Magdalene with Two Flames (after Georges de la Tour), Magdalene / Wiggins warily, challengingly gazes at the viewer. She rests her elbow on a table and her cheek on her hand. The table holds a mirror (symbol of vanity), a skull (representing mortality) and a candle whose flame is doubled in the mirror’s reflection (representing spirituality).

In After Hours, Magdalene / Wiggins stands in a late-dusk landscape draped in a red satin cape, her shoulders and her breasts exposed, smoking a cigarette. After Hours is inspired by Giampietrino’s (or possibly Leonardo da Vinci’s) bare-breasted Mary Magdalene. Seriously, prayer and penitence are hard work. Magdalene was often represented with ample long hair flowing, breasts exposed and in an ecstatic state. Representing Magdalene as an older woman contradicts these overtly sexualized depictions of a younger Mary Magdalene.

Finally, in Haloed I and II, Magdalene / Wiggins stands in a field of wildflowers on a misty day. The images are both redemptive and campy.

(photography by Luís Branco)