Why Nuns? | Bhat Boy
I hate it when people ask me why I paint nuns, because I just have too many answers.
Each of us have our own special view of who nuns are and what they should be doing. For some they are singing nannies, others think they are pias, some remember being struck on the back of the hand with a ruler by a cruel nun. I have painted nuns doing just about everything, but what sort of people are nuns? Strangely we don’t tend to think of them as individuals, but as herds of single minded women. This is the modern notion, of the cloistered nun.
When people see nuns in my paintings, they project whatever the nuns mean to them into the painting. Each of us has a slightly different idea about what nuns should and shouldn’t be doing and that image becomes the actor in my painting. Each of us has a different drama.
Why do I think nuns are important? There was once a time when nuns were freethinking women, who chose education over marriage. French women who boarded ships to come to Quebec. These brave unconventional women opened hospitals, orphanages, and schools. Few of the names are remembered of these brave and wild women despite their indelible on our history. The New World was not for the faint of heart.
I like their black and white habits, which make them so easy to identify, even when they are tiny figures. The nun’s habit comes from a time when everyone dressed according to their station. Until the twentieth century almost everyone in the western world dressed according to their profession, or status. Many parts of Europe restricted who could wear which colors. In these times people had little expectation of equality, the opposite, their wardrobe was an expression of a social ranking system. Virtually all but the most formal of these traditional costumes disappeared in the twentieth century, but the nun’s habit remains an important cultural connection going back to medieval times.
I love medieval things, did I mention that? I also like that they are black and white as this makes them easier to distinguish from a complex background, but most important of all is that I find nuns mysterious and I have always liked a good mystery.
Bhat Boy