Virginia Mallon
Women have always been punished for the simple act of questioning and/or saying no...
In the biblical narrative, Lot’s Wife was turned into a "glistening token" of salt for the "sin" of looking back—for witnessing the destruction of her family and home rather than blindly obeying the path ahead demanded by her husband.
I began this series, Wilderness of Salt, during a traumatic period in my own life. It was a way to psychologically connect to the greater whole of womanhood—from Eve to Typhoid Mary—women who have borne the burdens of a patriarchal society and the "unhappy consequences" of their own patriarchally perceived bad decisions.
Today, as we navigate the rise of a legal and social framework designed to return women to a state of "domestic subjection," I’m returning to her story. In a world that still turns a blind eye to systemic abuse, "disobedience" in 2026 is often just another word for refusing to ignore the truth.
Cassandra
portrait of young Virginia Giuffre
oil on burlap, 20x36, 2026
The painting Cassandra explores the devastating intersection of ancient myth and modern systemic abuse. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was gifted with the ability to see the future by the god Apollo, but when she refused his advances, he cursed her so that her prophecies would never be believed. She became the ultimate symbol of the silenced truth-teller—a woman who saw the coming ruin but was dismissed.
In this work, the mythological figure is personified by a young Virginia Giuffre. In casting Giuffre in the role of Cassandra, the piece draws a direct line from the divine "curse" of antiquity to the modern, calculated silencing of survivors. The "Apollo" of this era is not a single deity, but a global syndicate of power—presidents, royalty, CEOs, and academics—who used their status to facilitate and conceal a vast network of sexual predators with an appetite for children.
motherhood (->)
oil on canvas scroll, 16x42, 2026
Motherhood delves into the raw, biological tether that binds three generations of women before a single breath is even taken. How we are, at one point in time in our existence, a trinity of mother, daughter, granddaughter.
Motherhood is an exploration of this physical inheritance: the fact that in every female fetus she carries all her potential life—every egg she will ever have—by her fourth month in the womb. This means the cellular spark of your existence was present within your mother while she was still nestled inside your grandmother.
There is a wild, inescapable continuity here. A grandmother’s breath, her hunger, and her heartbeats, her joys and fears are the first environment for her grandchildren.
We are not solitary beings; we are vessels of a profound microchimerism, carrying the cells of our children within our own tissues for decades.
In a world where the masculine is often defined by the singular impulse of the moment, the feminine is defined by the weight of the past. We do not just witness history; we house it. We are the architects of a long, unbroken Herstory, carrying the lineage of the #treeoflife within a frame that is both fragile and eternal.
Lot's Wife
oil on burlap, 16x20, 2015
watching as civilization burns
oil on canvas, 16x16, 2026
Some have their head buried deep in the sand, others pop up every once in a while to take a peek at the horrors happening in our country.
This is a self-portrait of the artist - lifting her head from the sand as the world burns.
guarding liberty
oil on canvas, 30x40, 2026
In an era of systemic betrayal, where the traditional guardians of freedom are faltering, we are forced to ask: who remains to watch over liberty? For generations, Lady Liberty has represented an unshakeable beacon of hope and freedom; today, bruised, abused, and beaten she appears as a relic of a failing ideal.
Harkening back to the 2024 Inner Beasts series, Guarding Liberty reimagines America's defense not as a cold institution, but as the primal, ferocious instinct of the North American grizzly to protect her own. This is the spirit of the mother bear—an entity that knows no retreat when her brood is threatened.
As the world burns around us, and democracy wavers under the boot of the opressor, blood flowing from both citizens here and abroad from wounds inflicted by our elected administration, this piece serves as both a mourning for what was lost and a defiant search for the strength required to take it back.