I have shown various parts of this work since completing the hard bound version in 2004. But I've never assembled all of the pertinent 11K Virgins images including the early iterations into one grand volume. I've had many archives of various sections of the collection scattered over CDs and thumb drives. It was difficult and time consuming to collate and edit the beast until now. Having said that, I am happy to have completed the effort, because so many skills and ideas have emanated from 11K Virgins and found their way into newer works such as my current project, "The Girl Who Broke the Time Barrier."
The title of the series comes from the 4th century legend of St. Ursula, a Christian princess of British-Roman descent from Southwest England. Ursula wanted to join her future husband, the Roman Governor of Armorica, roughly encompassing the Brittany peninsula of France. To ensure Ursula's safety at sea, her father insisted she make the journey with eleven thousand virgin handmaids. The flotilla miraculously survived a sudden storm that in one afternoon blew them to the Mediterranean coast of Gaul. Ursula urged her entourage to praise God by visiting the Bishop of Rome, and then making a kind of hallelujah tour of Gaul and Roman Germania. Unfortunately, her arrival in Cologne occured just as the Huns were beseiging the city. The Hun strongman took Ursula for himself, and gave her entourage to his officers. Neither Ursula nor her virgins could be persuaded to marry their captors, so the Huns executed all of them.
The story got me thinking about sex, virginity, obsession and the sacred. I began to develop an image series with interlocking metaphors of memory, sexuality. obsession, and transformation.
This collection contains images of nudity and explicit sexuality. It is intended for mature audiences only. Start here.
