29"x20" Archival pigment print on 290 gsm Moab Entrada Cotton Rag paper.
Edition of 150, signed and numbered on the front.

Plague Prayer

The Plague, Black Plague, or Black Death was named because of the gangrene that would set in at the fingertips as being one of the first signs a person was infected. Gangrene is a type of tissue death, caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to black.

When the plague hit Lisbon, King Manuel I left the city for fear of contracting the disease. During the time of no rule, the Christians that were living in the city, began a belief that the Jews were responsible for the pestilence and started executing the Jews publicly as a sacrifice to God.

Over 1,900 Jews were killed over a period lasting only three days, this event would later be known as the Lisbon Massacre.

In my painting Plague Prayer, I have an infected person praying for salvation, though that salvation would never come. I placed this piece in what was the old Jewish neighborhood in Lisbon as a reference to the atrocity of what took place during the plague.