Virginia Mallon
As Above So Below
oil on canvas, 30x120
prints available email for details.
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As Above So Below draws from the ancient Hermetic axiom that reveals the profound connection between spiritual and physical realms—where the vast cosmos mirrors the intimate human experience, and vice versa. This timeless wisdom speaks to the delicate equilibrium that sustains all life on Earth, an equilibrium now under unprecedented threat from human impact.
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The Tree of Life, a sacred symbol transcending cultures and civilizations, cradles our planet in this work, embodying the fundamental interconnectedness that binds all existence. Its branches and roots weave through the composition as both protector and witness, reminding us that we are neither separate from nature nor above it, but intrinsically part of its living system.
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Beneath this embrace, individual societies manifest as planetary forms, cascading from Earth into the cosmic sea—each one a microcosm carrying the potential for both creation and destruction. These floating worlds represent humanity's diverse communities, each contributing to the larger pattern while drifting through the vast unknown of space and time.
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Through this visual meditation, I invite viewers to contemplate our place within the greater whole: how our individual actions ripple outward to affect the macrocosm, and how the health of our planet ultimately reflects back into our own lived experience. In this moment of ecological crisis, As Above So Below serves as both warning and invitation—to recognize our role as participants in, rather than masters of, the intricate web of existence.
Virginia Mallon is a New York artist working in paint, photography, and mixed media. Her work contemplates religious, historic, and mythological women, personal histories (including her own), and the psychological undercurrents of modern society. With influences from social realism, political, and feminist art, it touches upon the angst and trauma of contemporary America, with a female point-of-view, on serial rapists, serial killers, forced birth, and religious fanatics, and ongoing attack on reproductive rights.
Mallon’s work explores painting on non-traditional surfaces, such as burlap, slate, found objects, and cigar boxes as well as oil on canvas. Recent projects also use discarded roof tiles from a former state-run (1885-1996) condemned psychiatric hospital. Now a hotspot for urbex explorers, it provides a wealth of unusual poignant pieces of history on which to paint. The added symbolism using a piece of broken shelter from an insane asylum seems appropriate for our times.
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