Zoe Meiring

Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

Group Catalogue Site

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free – John 8:32

This body of work consists of multiple multimedia artistic gestures that are connected by two kinds of invisible labour - the gradual abrasion of my religiosity expressed through repetitive, laborious and ritualistic tasks that mimic the labour of undoing years of religious indoctrination. My work draws from my memories as a learner at Holy Cross Sisters School, a Catholic primary school; where I recited daily prayers and incantations, had Religious Education as a compulsory subject and attended weekly mass at our on-site chapel. I also draw from my strict, fundamentalist Christian upbringing.

Through knitting, writing, drawing, sculpting, reading and dissecting biblical texts; I use religious motifs to explore my disentanglement from religious ideologies and my subsequent path to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The subversion of power and authority that I had once attributed to Christianity is a common thread throughout my body of work, which has become a cathartic, meditative experience for me during my extrication from religion. This body of work obscures the line between devotion and blasphemy, as I unravel and rework what used to be at the core of my identity.

Illuminated Verses is a collection of 21 bible verses that I came across while exploring religious texts outside of what I was taught at school, at home and at church. These verses helped facilitate my exodus from religion. Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani draws from Jesus’ crucifixion narrative and explores the glorification of human sacrifice and violence within Christianity. Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani is a by-product of godless, which subverts the authority that religion once had over my life through the removal of the word “god” from the bible. The removed biblical text is adhered to Tabernacle, which acts as the dwelling place for the word “god” and confines what is believed to be an omnipresent and omnipotent deity.

White as snow is a series of 3 textual works that consists of layers of handwritten text of the word “god” that has completely saturated the sheets. In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God makes use of a technique called semantic satiation, whereby the uninterrupted repetition of a word renders it meaningless. In this way, I canonise what religion now means to me. Forgiveness is the embodiment of the self-love that I’ve learnt through this deconversion process, actively combatting years of guilt and shame as a result of religious indoctrination. The colours are inspired by the Catholic liturgical colours of the priesthood’s garb. I liken this journey towards apostasy to Eve’s consumption of the forbidden fruit, which allowed them to know the difference between good and evil. Dedication to Eve and Genesis 2:17 (which reads: “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”) are inspired by this notion, and this represents the death of my religious conviction and coming to know the truth.