"Mary with Reddish-Blond Hair"

c-print on aluminum Dibond on acrylic glass (Diasec)

signed, titled, dated, numbered on verso

In the Digital Paintings series, the artist wanders through the epochs of art history with the intention of identifying interfaces between historical and contemporary aesthetics. By extracting faces from well-known Renaissance paintings and supplementing them with a modern setting and pictorial elements that speak a contemporary language and translating them into a modern idiom, the artist Dorothee Golz examines historical and contemporary social projections and clichés in relation to the perception and representation of women and men.
(Taxispalais, Kunsthalle Tirol)

There is something incredibly delicate and shy about this Madonna by Memling; she seems to be asking for a moment's peace with her hand and saying: "Wait, I'm not quite ready yet". My Maria with her reddish-blonde hair also needs a moment. She has not yet settled down on the bed with her whole body weight. A delicate enamel surrounds her soft, childlike, feminine body, which she doesn't seem to have fully arrived in yet. The grace of her painterly face spreads across the entire photographic scene and lends the picture a special magic. Memling's portrayal of the Madonna unites things that are normally mutually exclusive: Spiritualization and eroticism.
(Dorothee Golz, 2015)

The Annunciation of the Lord, Annuntiatio Domini in Latin, or Annunciation of Mary, is a Christian feast day and the name given to the event described in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:28) when the angel Gabriel announces that the Virgin Mary will conceive the Son of God from the Holy Spirit and give birth to him. The scene has been a frequent motif in the visual arts throughout the centuries and was depicted in many different ways, particularly during the Renaissance. The depictions usually show Mary and the angel in the interior of a house as a symbol of Mary's inwardness, chastity and virginity. The Annunciation by Hans Memlingen (ca. 1465-1470), which Dorothee Golz used as a reference, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "One of the largest surviving depictions of the Annunciation, this imposing painting was most likely commissioned by Ferry de Clugny, whose family coat of arms—the two joined keys—decorates the carpet and stained-glass window. In 1465, Ferry founded the Chapelle Dorée as his burial site in the Saint-Lazare cathedral at Autun and lavishly decorated it with artworks, probably including this panel. The composition is based on a design by Rogier van der Weyden. Possibly commissioned before his death in 1464, it was painted by Memling, who, technical evidence suggests, was a journeyman in Rogier’s Brussels workshop before establishing himself in Bruges in 1465." (The Met)
(Christoph Fuchs)