Virginia Mallon 

Wilderness of Salt includes several  distinct yet interconnected series.

 

It began with a project titled Washed in on the Salt, that explored, in writing, mixed media and photography, loss and regret.  Images of biblical and mythological women are balanced against their current day counterparts.  It balanced historic regret against contemporary.  The first in this series "Lot's Wife" takes inspiration from the Houseman poem:
 

"Half-way, for one commandment broken,

The woman made her endless halt,

And she today a glittering token,

Stands in the wilderness of salt.

Behind, the vats of judgement brewing

Thundered, and thick the brimstone snowed;

He to the hill of his undoing

Pursued this road."
 

Two recent project that came from this effort  are Even in the Garden and Inner Beasts. Both look at the historical and contemporary roles of women, exploring the dynamics of power, societal influence, and identity.

 

Even in the Garden breaks down myths, biblical narratives, and fairy tales to reflect on how  their portrayal of women's societal positioning and how these foundational, often fictive, accounts symbolically represent the erosion of feminine power and the emergence of patriarchal structures. Tracing its conceptual origins from antiquity to the present, Even in the Garden scrutinizes the persistence of outdated ideologies within contemporary contexts. The title itself underscores the pervasive and historical vulnerability of women, where even in this Biblical, imaginary garden, women bore the brunt of an oppressive male presence of god and man.

 

Inner Beasts examines  societal conditioning that mandates female conformity from an early age.  It look at the modern concept of "masking," where women face overwhelming societal pressure to  mask their authentic selves in order to confirm into what is expected of them, to be an alluring sexual female from childhood onward. This series aims to reveal the underlying, often suppressed, authentic identities that exist beneath these facades.