Trina McKillen
The Children, 2015–18, 20 communion dresses, 20 altar boy vestments, Irish linen, thread, gold leaf, Collection of the artist; ©️ Trina McKillen; Photo courtesy of Trina McKillen and Lisa Sette Gallery
Wounded Beauty
Commentary by Cecilia González-Andrieu
Who are the blameless the psalmist calls righteous? (Psalm 37:18–37). Who are the defenceless who become the target of the wicked? Has God taken a vacation? (Brandt 1973: 59).
Psalm 37 states that God’s vindication of the innocent ‘will shine like the light, and the justice of [their] cause like noonday’ (v.6 NRSV). But how can we say this to those whose childhood is shattered by abuse? How can we assure them that God is on their side?
In The Children, Trina McKillen—who found refuge in her Catholic parish during ‘The Troubles’ in Belfast—exposes the agonizing betrayal of having the community we love converted into a place of suffering (McKillen 2020: 4–9). As she shines multiple lights on innocent children, victims of abuse from those they trusted, their small ghostly figures—represented by suspended First Communion dresses made from the delicate lace which is so traditional to Catholicism—hauntingly evoke the joy and festiveness of the moment when the liturgy is about to begin.
The children’s evanescent presence is searing precisely through their absence, disclosing a wounded innocence (García-Rivera 2003: xi). In the work we are confronted by their pain, and asked to wrestle with what it is to love a tradition that betrays us. Although no explicit violence is represented here, what is evil is in plain sight in The Children. The communal celebration of Christ’s presence is agonizingly interrupted by the embroidered gold serpent on each ‘child’s’ breast, ready to devour them. They bear on themselves the symbol of evil entwined with the keyhole through which both the wicked and the righteous may enter.
The Children exposes innocence at its most vulnerable; faith traditions as beautifully evocative and also excruciatingly wounded; and wickedness as ready to use whatever means it can as an opening to strike. Will our vigilance and commitment to ‘do good’ (vv.3,27) break the grip of the wicked and bring the restoration that God promises?
References
Brandt, Leslie F. and Corita Kent. 1973. Psalms/Now (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House)
García-Rivera, Alex. 2003. A Wounded Innocence: Sketches for a Theology of Art (Collegeville: Liturgical Press)
