"Stations of a blessed sacrilege" (1995). Georges Bataille’s erotic novella “The Story of the Eye” was the inspiration for my photographic depiction of an unabashed—uninhibited—unholy communion. I captured the original content in black & white film in the autumn of 1991. Four years later, I hand-coloured a selection of the photos to form a provocative narrative in parody of saintly prayer cards. The models’ skin also resembles polished wax, similar to the 'incorruptible' corpses of saints displayed in reliquaries of various churches, cathedrals and basilicas. The occurrence of incorruptibility—in which the bodies of some saints are thought to have been miraculously preserved—is sometimes referred to as "saintly cadavers". I used a Konica AUTOREFLEX T4 35mm Film SLR Manual camera throughout the series. Click on each thumbnail to get a larger image with more details as well as numerous photo outtakes.
