Zara Worth
Think of a door (temptation/redemption), 2022, LED lighting and imitation gold leaf on polythene, Dimensions variable; Image courtesy of the artist.
Moral Uncertainty
Commentary by Zara Worth
In my installation Think of a door (temptation/redemption) forms and motifs borrowed from social media and smartphone designs are tangled up with elements drawn from religious artworks and architecture. The installation comprises two LED sculptures and a large gilded pictorial element.
The pictorial element of the installation is gilded on both sides, each side’s imagery correlating to either the theme of temptation or redemption. For example, the ‘temptation’ side features a reference to Auguste Rodin’s Gates of Hell (modelled 1880–1917, cast 1926–28), while the ‘redemption’ side includes forms borrowed from Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise (1425–52). These artistic precedents are themselves representative of the wide and narrow gates described in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. However, because the ground of the installation’s pictorial element (on which these forms from Rodin’s and Ghiberti’s artworks are gilded) is clear polythene, the gates of hell and paradise appear knotted together. They are additionally muddled up with numerous references to digital and divine images whose entanglement renders them temporarily morally ambiguous.
The LED sculptures take forms that reference painted frames from religious icons and smartphone bezels and then nest them within one another like matryoshka (Russian dolls). These glowing frames are scaled-up to embody the icon and smartphone’s shared metaphorical status as doorways to immaterial realms. Thanks to the similarity of their shapes, it is impossible without prior knowledge to distinguish which of the coloured frames reference smartphones and which are drawn from religious artworks.
The wide and narrow gates of Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels, which at face value correlate to predefined ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of living, may not categorize moral decisions as simply as might be assumed. In Luke, we are warned that many, ‘will try to enter and will not be able to’ (13:24), leading to anger and confusion from those denied the entry to the kingdom that they expected. Such uncertainty as to what a threshold might represent is echoed by the composition of Think of a door (temptation/redemption)—speaking to the moral complexity often inherent in decision-making in modern life.