Artwork of the Week: 'Shell Deity' by Brent Malone

05/31/2018

To mourn the eminent closing of our 2018's Transforming Spaces exhibition, MUSE, this week we highlight one of Brent Malone's most famous pieces, 'Shell Deity'.

This painting is most iconic for Malone's expertise in capturing the renaissance style and is often compared to Masaccio's 'Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and St. John and Donors'. In a curatorial essay written by Erica James, Phd. for an exhibition entitled REINCARNATION: A Retrospective Exhibition she argues that 'Malone rendered various intricate shells in the center of the composition' in place of Christ's body. Drawing from 'Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and St. John and Donors', this placement of the shell between fifteenth century panels solidifies the tropical symbolism within formally classical work.