The Pregnant Virgin
2023
First edition of The Pregnant Virgin by Torbjørn Rødland (2023)
First impression
Large format hardback in new condition
Signed by Torbjørn Rødland to paper tipped in to the copyright page
Published by MACK Books
About
The title of this new book from renowned photographer and book-maker Torbjørn Rødland suggests that the artist is looking for the divine in his sitters. If the child in Madonna and child paintings symbolises truth, then the pregnant virgin might represent a temporarily concealed truth – one masked or hidden behind compromised shells and failing bodies, young and old. The photographs in this arresting new collection negotiate surface and interiority and welcome tensions between contingent reality and archetypes, often uncannily recalling day-to-day life in intensely physical and opaquely allusive scenes.