Oil on canvas, each panel 20" x 24"
Painted during my time in Texas, this modern triptych reinterprets La Santa Muerte through vibrant color, layered symbolism, and everyday objects. Each piece stands alone yet connects visually and thematically: mirroring the complex relationship between reverence, mortality, and ritual. Together, the three panels form a personal altar: an offering to transformation, memory, and the quiet power of devotion in daily life.
La Santa Muerte Triptych, Panel III
The third and final panel completes the triptych with a softened yet potent composition. The urgency of the previous scenes settles into reflection: pill bottles, colored liquids, and small domestic relics remain, but now feel quiet, weathered by time and ritual. A framed flower stands in for something mourned or remembered:an intimate altar piece.
An unpeeled orange anchors the foreground. Unlike the earlier persimmon, this fruit is whole. It is offering sweetness, vitality, and a gesture of unresolved potential. Oranges, often symbols of generosity and the sun, here evoke nourishment not yet taken, pleasure not yet claimed. Their brightness counters the shadows, offering hope or temptation, depending on the viewer’s frame of mind.
Beneath the surface, this work channels the deeper cosmology of La Santa Muerte: not simply as a folk figure, but as a syncretic force older than Christianity. Her form blends Catholic imagery with Mesoamerican death goddesses, pointing to ancient matriarchal power over life and death. In this context, the domestic space becomes more than backdrop; it is a sacred site of care, magic, and unspoken resistance. The women who tend these places have long held power in plain sight.
With its shifting palette (from cool restraint to warmer aftermath) this final panel acts as a benediction. It honors the sweetness that survives, the beauty that persists, and the quiet, feminine authority that underlies transformation.