Photobook Sunday proof read

ABJECT ICONS
Trinity
Marginality
Transformation
Pippa King
2020

CONTENTS
JOURNEY 5
Pattern as Icon 20
Labyrinth reflection 25
WORKS 27
COMMENTARY 53
REFERENCES 58
All art works and photographs by Pippa King unless stated otherwise
Front cover: Snakes, 2020
Inside cover: Death, 2019
Left: Three 2020
Next page:
Trinity/Coffee, 2020
All works, words and photographs © Pippa King 2020

JOURNEY

Icons
My quest is to create objects that facilitate
connection with the divine, and that challenge the
patriarchal and hierarchical representations of the
Christian tradition. I use the idea of ‘the Abject’ as
described by French feminist Julia Kristeva as a
way of approaching this.
Icons in the religious sense are religious paintings
used for devotion, strongly symbolic. The word
usually refers to a specific style and tradition, but I
am using the word more widely for images made
to help people connect with soul, spirit and ‘god’. I
come from a white Western Christian tradition,
but find that its almost exclusively masculine
images and language for God do not help me make
this connection and in many cases are repellent.
A non-patriarchal and non-hierarchical
understanding of god is outlined in Kristeva’s
writings; not the patriarchal religious system she
calls ‘symbolic’ but the ‘semiotic’ religion she
would describes as a divine power that connects
everyone and everything to the divine and each
other.[1] This idea is similar to some
contemporary Christian thought: ‘Everything I see
and know is one uni-verse, revolving around one
coherent centre. This Divine Presence seeks
connection and communion, not separation or
division[2].’
Human belief in a force or being that created and
sustains the universe, in universal pattern, or a
deity, is by definition impossible to understand or
describe, so I set myself a fairly impossible
question. Monotheistic religions agree that no
image or name can represent a God who, when
asked for their name, would only say ‘I am who I
am’. While Pantheistic religions have many gods
portraying different aspects of the divine, even
within themselves, monotheistic faiths rely on a
multiplicity of metaphors, and in some cases a cast
of saintly characters, to connect with different
aspects of the divine mystery.
Universal Pattern1 and II
Pippa King, 2019
Linocut and collage on paper, 420 x 594
Photographed among the arches on which the design is based, Pippa King, August 2020
Right:
Pray
Pippa King 2020
Photograph of randomly folded cloth printed with a repeating pattern made from a drawing of a triskelion pattern,
mounted on board, (Pippa King, 2019) photographed 2020 in a niche with tapers

Not patriarchal or
hierarchical
My particular question is the search for icons –
ways of representing the divine - that are nonpatriarchal
and non-hierarchical. It was decades
ago that Mary Daly summed up the negative
impact on society of patriarchal religion: ‘if god is
male then male is god’[3] – yet the ‘graven mental
image[4]’ of god as a man persists. This is relevant
to wider society, not just religious groups. Despite
equality legislation (to which some religions in the
UK are exempt) ingrained misogyny proves hard
to shift.
In even mainstream Christian theology, it is
understood that God is a spirit beyond gender –
both male and female are ‘made in God’s image’
and it’s reasonable to say that God is nonbinary.
But in practice the language and imagery used is
almost exclusively masculine. The most cursory
look at centuries of Christian art shows images
that are overwhelmingly male, with female
characters limited to the Virgin Mary and a few
images of women, often with bare breasts, who
are being sexually assaulted or repenting of sexual
sin. Christian liturgy, song and scripture use
almost entirely masculine pronouns and
metaphors for God, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury[5] bizarrely made the newspaper
headlines in 2018 when he mentioned that both
male and female pronouns for God were valid.
Even the word ‘god’ is difficult to use as it has
patriarchal and hierarchical associations – which is
why I don’t capitalise it unless referring specifically
to Christian ideas. But the use of ‘goddess’
suggests a separate, niche, character, despite the
image of the great divine creator and sustainer of
life being overwhelmingly female in ancient times.
I like the phrase ‘graven mental image’, coined by
one Christian writer[4] to describe this
unconscious idea Western cultures have of god as
male - often in the image of an old man with a
white beard. This, she says, is an ‘idol’ (or graven
image) as it’s something that is worshipped instead
of what god actually is - something or someone
much less comprehensible or describable, and
beyond gender.
Right:
Broken Icon
Pippa King, 2020
A pair of carved wooden hands originating from an old icon, photographed in a church
Above:
Not patriarchal or Hierarchical
Potential collage materials observered, 2019

Disruption
My way of approaching this question has been to
disrupt the ‘accepted’ view of an icon. Early on I
decided not to approach this in the obvious way
with a female-bodied god in place of male. This
has been done historically, to controversial effect;
for example the Christa[6] statue in 1984 and the
Sister Chapel[7] in the 1970s. And I don’t think
there is anything wrong with this; a female Christ
(as opposed to the historical Jesus) is theologically
fine[8], just as it is considered appropriate to have
representations of Christ with different skin
colour and ethnicity. And on the grounds that all
humans are ‘imago dei’ then pictures of anyone
can represent god, as in the uncontroversial
contemporary interpretations of Rublev’s Icon of
the Trinity by Meg Wroe[9], whichi use real
people from different churches as models, with
one version commissioned by Southwark
Cathedral. Catholic theologian Fr Richard Rohr’s
view of the Universal Christ would see ‘the
Christ’ in all living things[2].
Immediately before beginning this research, I was
working on a project I called ‘In Pursuit of the
Giant Rabbit’, which explored a recurring dream.
Research led to ancient goddesses who were
associated with fertility and sometimes were
accompanied by rabbits or hares – such as Ostara
who gave us Easter and its bunny, or the Chinese
moon goddess Chang'e. I found it hard to make
contemporary representations of powerful female
deities like Wenet (part hare). Even prints I made
of them as girls, which aimed to avoid sexual
objectification, such as ‘Inanna as a Girl Practising
for World Domination’ were read as boys - unless
I gave them obvious skirts or long hair. This,
followed by another experiment with the
perception of male and female characters, led me
to look for different, more oblique, approaches.
Above:
Queer Trinity, Pippa King 2020 (detail)
Opposite:
Womb of God, Pippa King 2020 (detail)

Abject
I use the idea of ‘the Abject’ in my work to
explore this question. ‘Abjection’ is described by
Julia Kristeva as that which ‘disturbs identity,
system, order; does not respect borders,
positions, rules; the in-between, the ambiguous,
the composite.[10]’ It provokes disgust or
revulsion.
Kristeva writes that the demarcation between
male and female is one of society’s most universal
taboos, and that which blurs this boundary is
Abject. I think we see this in the reactions of
disgust, horror and violent aggression towards
trans people. Another definition of Abject is ‘that
which we thrust aside in order to live’. I am
interested in questioning ideas of identity that are
tied up (even unconsciously) in patriarchal and
hierarchical assumptions and lead to the exclusion
those who threaten these. In the Church of
England some men who believe that only men can
be priests refuse to be ordained (made priest) by
a Bishop who has also ordained women, and this
is called a ‘theology of taint’. In my opinion that
phrase indicates that disgust, fear or revulsion
towards female bodies lie behind protestations of
theological (or ideological) purity. Kristeva talked
about ‘the other’ as being people that are cast out,
‘outcast’, to protect identity. As someone who has
found a fruitful place on the queer edge of
Christianity, it is this place on the margins that I
am interested in. Queer Feminist theologian Linn
Marie Tonstad says, ‘Queer holiness is always a
holiness of the Other.’[11]
Abject Art back in the 1980s and 90s was
associated with the shock tactics of using bodily
fluids as a medium, and that is not part of my
methodology. My references to female bodies and
blurring of gender are more abstract than that. I
am more interested in employing ‘Surrealist
strategies to denaturalise ideologies and
conventions…making the familiar strange[12]’ in
order to provoke feelings that reveal and
challenge assumptions.
Above:
Broken Labyrinth
Pippa King 2020
Right:
Drawn on the Body 1
Pippa King 2020

Fragmentation
One important aspect of this is fragmentation. I
learned as I worked that my strategy, in
photography in particular, is to always show the
part, not the whole: details, oblique angles,
abstract shapes, interesting juxtapositions, rarely
centred. This is a way of trying to look at
something beyond the obvious – a strategy that I
think suits my task of making icons, which can only
ever be partial and hint at the indescribable.
The fragmented approach is described as tentative
and un-masculine but also as possibly a better
method of exploration in this article about
Charlotte Prodger’s work: ‘You never see her
whole body, or anyone else’s. You might see a
portion of her hand, or a bit of her furry hat. The
self is fragmented …. , offering the opposite of the
certainty of a masculinist point of view. It reminds
me of the Scottish poet and nature writer Nan
Shepherd – a writer whom Prodger admires –
saying that ‘the better way to discover a mountain
might be not to walk up it, but to walk around it,
finding its secret places and crevices rather than
its peaks.’[13]
Another way of disrupting over-familiar
assumptions so they are revealed, and possibly
questioned, is suggested by James Hunting’s textile
pieces, which have small disturbances in the
pattern. He says, “Woven cloth follows a rule of
warp and weft. Disrupt these and the eye cannot
smooth over difference. These exclusions hold the
glance. They disturb the non-looking and nonseeing
that pervades, enforcing an
engagement.[14]”
So, something that doesn’t fit – an out-of-place
object, a jarring juxtaposition, some missing
information – can provoke that shift to another
perspective or dimension, maybe by requiring the
imagination to fill the gap, create a narrative. Thus,
I am making ‘icons’ that are in some ways
familiarly religious, but also don’t fit. Something
that provokes not just a question but a feeling of
strangeness or discomfort, while also being
compelling. And I’m making more than one, as
there is not one answer but a number of
possibilities.
This and next two pages, all Pippa King 2019
Kitchen Crucifix
15 th Century Arch and Duster
Oasis

Pattern
In search of non-figurative ways of representing
the divine, I explored pattern.
Pattern can be an icon, a way of representing
god/dess or the unseen world. It is used in
different traditions (Kolam, mandalas, Tantra
paintings[15]) as well as by Spiritualist artists
(Emma Kunz[16], Hilda af Klimt and many lesser
known[17]) to seek the divine, or represent the
spiritual world or the pattern of the universe.
It is non-hierarchical in its flattening of elements,
as well as potentially in its design. Pattern is
typically associated with women and the domestic
sphere[18], so not patriarchal. It is ancient,
connected to the earth and its rhythms, and iconic
ancient symbols inducing circles and spirals have
strong female associations. And something about
to me is drawn to pattern: there is an impulse to
break up an image, play with repeating it through
print, or put it through a kaleidoscope app, and
transform it into something new and abstract.
On the other hand, I questioned whether abstract
pattern could meet the need for something to
connect to or believe in, in the way I see icons as
functioning. Theologian Sallie McFague[19] points
out that her chosen metaphors for god – mother,
lover, friend - are all personal, because, she says
‘any imaginative picture attempting to unseat the
triumphalist, royalist model must be at least as
attractive as it is. It must … come from a place
deep within human experience... imagery of sex,
breath, food, blood, water, birth.’
This as well as my interest in the abject drew me
to ancient patterns and symbols that have deep
associations with human experience, and also to
making tactile, physical, sensory objects rather
than just 2D computer-generated designs.
Womb of God, Pippa King 2020, detail
Triptych, Pippa King 2019: a series of three patterns
made from photos of church kneelers

Changing the pattern
In summer 2019 I spent three days working in a
12 th Century church. Behind the choir stalls, the
church has a line of ‘blind’ Norman arches made in
the early 13 th Century overlapping to create the
pointed shapes that would become Gothic arches.
I made some prints based on this with a linocut
arch, then deliberately tried to arrange the arches
in a circle, to reflect an idea of god that is about
inclusivity, connection and flow - a common
attribute of ‘goddess’ or ‘mother god’[20] but also
Rohr’s metaphor for the Trinity as a circle
dance[21].
Hierarchy was reflected in the typical architecture
of the church building, with a rope barrier
restricting access to the chancel, the area close to
the altar, and a (long-disused) special door for the
priest behind the altar so ‘he’ didn’t have to mix
with the people. The prints I made re-arranged
the arches in the way I imagined re-ordering a
church in an egalitarian circle.
McFague points out that ‘hierarchical, dualistic
pattern is so widespread in western thought that
it is usually not perceived to be a pattern but is
felt simply the be way things are[19].’ Changing a
linear pattern, one that is so normal it is not even
seen as a pattern, both reveals it and offers
another option.
Photos made in the church are partial, fragmented.
None are scenes which I set up, merely
observations of what was there. It is the out-ofplace
object, the ‘mistake’ such as a dying flower
arrangement, that interest me. I feel this has
elements of the Abject in that it focuses on the inbetween,
the slightly smelly and domestic reality
behind the high ritual of Sunday worship.
This might have the effect of abjection, if it causes
mild disgust or the feeling that the mess should be
put away and not interfere with the order of an
ancient religious building designed to draw the
thoughts to God. But the photos are not meant to
be critical; I personally feel that what happens
behind the scenes, and the people and
relationships involved – mostly women - is as
much part of the pattern as what happens behind
the altar on a Sunday. The photos that show hand
sanitiser alongside crucifixes have more resonance
now than when I took them.
Universal Pattern I, II and III
Photographed in the arcade that inspired them.
Pippa King 202
Opposite: Universal Pattern II, Linocut and collage, Pippa King, 2019

Pattern
As
Icon
There is a small but fascinating genre of
European women artists who used abstract
patterns to represent the structure of the
universe or the unseen world. This was
abstract art before it was officially ‘invented’
(by male artists). In 2019 the Serpentine
Gallery had an exhibition of Swiss healer
Emma Kunz’s[22] pastel-coloured
geometric line drawings, whose creation was
guided by a divining pendulum. Georgiana
Houghton was a British medium whose
spirit-guided abstract patterns from the
1860s/70s look ‘as if they were objects from
a reverse time capsule that had been
projected back 40 years from the period of
the avant-garde.’[23] Swedish artist Hilma
af Klimt (1862-1964) pursued theosophy,
which led her to ‘a visual investigation of
psychical abstraction’.[16] An exhibition at
the Museum of Everything in December
2019 included lesser-known artists who
explored ‘sacred geometry’ through pattern.
The practice of Olga Frobe-kapten (1881-
1962) was an investigation of the other; she
was an associate of Jung, and her abstract
works reference Jungian archetypes[17].
Spiritual pattern is not a Western idea.
Islamic art features geometric patterns as
representation of living things is forbidden.
Kolam patterns (above) made daily by
women, and Rangoli patterns, use repeated
traditional religious symbols and domestic,
ephemeral materials. Yantra (tantra
paintings), which look like abstract patterns,
are ‘visual mantras’: the maker meditates on
the image to manifest the divine. This
practice is based on the belief that life
provides fulfilment only when its threads
are woven according to the pattern
designated by nature. Self-centred
behaviour tangles the threads, but practices
like yantra restore the original pattern[15].
Jung included in ‘Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious’ many
reproductions of mandalas, abstract
patterned images whose name in Sanskrit
means ‘circle' or ‘centre’, and refers to art
created within or with reference to the form
of a circle. He believed that when a person
draws or paints a mandala, unconscious
leanings or wants are expressed in its
patterns, symbols and shapes. Art therapy
pioneer Joan Kellogg developed the
practice and identified Ten Archetypal
Stages of The Great Round[24].
Patterns are ancient, and universal. Circles
can represent the archetypical mother
goddess, also known as ‘the Great
Round’[25]. A circle can represent God in
Christian thought: St Hildegard of Bingen
said, ‘Just as a circle embraces all that is in
it, so does the godhead embrace all’. She
drew the universe after visions from God.
Spiral patterns - a sacred symbol that can
represent the journey of life to the Source -
are found from Neolithic carvings in

Scotland to aboriginal cave art. Labyrinths
are one step on from this. Visual patterns –
and those expressed in ritual, dance, or
liturgy - often represent or reflect the
patterns in nature and the rhythms of
natural life: seasons, tides, day and night,
life cycle, monthly cycle. Or they can
represent ideas, beliefs, things imagined.
And sometimes they are used to impose a
meaning, a pattern on chaotic-seeming
existence. Charlotte Higgins wonders,
‘Maybe labyrinths were placed in churches
to hint at the notion that the universe is
subject to design, however impenetrable its
patterns might appear.’[26]
Pattern is associated with women.
Spiritualist pattern, Kolam pattern, ancient
circular symbols all make this association
positive. But this becomes negatively
perceived when pattern is associated with
domesticity and the home. This may be
why it has also been considered trite and of
little value as art.
Ana Arujo[18] describes the link between
repeating patterns and the repetitive
rhythms of domestic work. This has not
been entirely negative: the pattern-making
machine of the loom was once the heart of
the home (and in some cultures still is;
there is a beautiful film[27] of Iranian
weavers ‘singing the pattern’ of the carpet
they are making). But the idea of the home
as an extension of the woman’s body and
her only permitted environment clearly
made it oppressive. The flower-patterned
furnishings that marked a non-working
woman’s status were nature tamed and
mass produced, forming a comfortably
decorated cage.
William Morris fabrics are sometimes seen
to typify cliched suburban domestic pattern.
But in reality, the Arts and Crafts
movement was radically socialist. They
protested against cheap mass production
and the exploitation of cheap labour and
promoted craftsmanship, including that of
women, valuing the natural world,
materials, and handmade work
characterised by imperfections, not
machine-perfect reproduction. Their ethical
framework is relevant today those
attempting to live more consciously, justly
and sustainably – upsetting the capitalist
system. Something which made the H&M x
Morris & Co collaboration in 2018
somewhat ironic even as it ‘shows the
relevance of Morris’ iconic patterns
today’[28].
Imperfection in pattern makes it
interesting. At the Queering Space[14]
exhibition of textile artist James Hunting’s
work, he said: ‘Woven cloth follows a rule
of warp and weft. Disrupt these and the eye
cannot smooth over difference. These
exclusions hold the glance. They disturb
the non-looking and non-seeing that
pervades, enforcing an engagement.’ The
techniques of ‘the Feminist Uncanny’ from
the 1970s made ‘homely’ things like
crochet slightly unsettling to reveal the
oppression of women and the assumptions
that restricted them to the home[29].
People who refuse to fit in a pattern or
system show up the existence of that system
- which can otherwise be unrecognised as a
system as it’s ‘just the way things are’ – and
point the way to a different reality, a
different belief system, just as an icon does.
As part of the London Design Festival in
2019 ‘Patternity’ had installed a black and
white labyrinth outside Westminster
Cathedral. This design studio aims ‘to use
pattern to better understand life. But in an
increasingly complex, materialistic and fastpaced
world, filled with large conglomerates
and flooded by vast amounts of waste, we
also wanted to break the pattern. We want
to use pattern as an antidote to
humankind’s mounting disconnection and
sense of isolation; to promote a ‘new way of
seeing’ …. To observe the overlooked and
consider coincidence is to find an enduring
sense of connection to our environment
and to each other – a connection that can
simply begin by opening our eyes.’[30] If an
icon is something made to connect us with
the divine, with the soul, with a wider
perspective, with a different way of living
then it’s interesting to see pattern being
explicitly used in this way.
Image captions
All photos Pippa King unless stated.
Left page: Coronavirus pattern; Fallen
Blossom pattern; Kolam drawing in India,
photo McKay Savage/Flickr; spiral pattern
from a Sharpie drawing from St Mary
Magdalene church; Making natural
mandalas at an art workshop; Flytipped
Shopping Trolley pattern; St Hildegard of
Bingen, Das Weltall (the Universe),
1151(public domain); pattern from a
drawing in the style of Emma Kunz.
Right page: prehistoric stone carvings in the
National Museum of Scotland; Pattern
from Labyrinth/ Map print; H&M x Morris
& Co x XR; James Hunting work at the
Queering Space exhibition; Patternity
labyrinth at Westminster Cathedral

Trinity
In looking at icons, I focused on the Christian
metaphor of the Trinity as one that can be used to
imagine god as a pattern, as plural, as a
collaborative model of unity in diversity. But
traditional icons of the Trinity include some of the
most masculine and hierarchal of all Christian
images: two men (or sometimes and old man
holding a male baby) plus a little bird that is barely
visible in the picture.
One different version is by Hildegard of Bingen, a
12 th century Christian mystic who recorded her
visions in pictures. Her Trinity has Jesus in the
centre of concentric circles. She wrote, ‘Just as a
circle embraces all that is in it, so does the
godhead embrace all.’[31]
Catholic theologian Richard Rohr’s popular book
on the Trinity[21] uses the metaphor of an
inclusive circle dance to describe god and claims
the Trinity means ‘God is relationship itself’.
Metaphorical theologian Sallie McFague proposes
an alternate trinity of ‘mother, lover, friend[19]’.
My work is influenced by the challenging work of
queer feminist theologian Linn Marie Tonstad[11]
who describes a Trinity of non-hierarchical
relationships best represented by the clitoris (in
contrast to ‘phallic’ penetration of each other’s
space). This, she suggests, ‘symbolises the
economy of surface touch in which intensification
and co-presence permit ever-greater intimacy
between those who remain different in their
particularity’.
with them tend to be considered unclean.
Tonstad’s work influenced my desire to include
elements of female embodiment around birth and
sexuality in my work, by implication if not
obviously. And my pursuit of universal, circular
pattern is influenced by Richard Rohr’s ideas of
connectedness and flow[21].
The Abject is referenced in my choice of
characters for my Queer Trinity. I was inspired by
both metaphorical theology and Surrealist art to
think freely of images. The giant rabbit came from
a recurring dream, and on refection represents
the Mother archetype. Rabbits and hares have
long symbolised fertility and rebirth, and been
associated with fertility goddesses.
Girls have embodied the idea of suffering for
others (not necessarily by choice) throughout
history and still widely in the world today. The
third person started out as a drag queen angel,
inspired by a joyous life drawing session at the
National Portrait Gallery modelled by the Virgin
Extravaganzah in LGBT+ history week. Through
drawing, this became more of a non-binary
character, as many of the traditional icons depict
men wearing flowing robes that would now be
read as women’s clothing.
Fertility (or birth) and the blurring of male and
female are noted as examples of things considered
Abject in patriarchy, and surely the horrors
inflicted on girls result from the fear or revulsion
of patriarchal society.
Although this sounds like a niche religious idea,
really it is wider cultural issue that needs
addressing for a post-patriarchal world. People
don’t have to be religious to have underlying
mental associations of male with god - and thus
with characteristics such as authority, strength or
wisdom (or tropes like the maverick genius or
lone saviour). The one feeds off the other, in that
different models of leadership or government –
consensual, collaborative, less ego-driven – are
not necessarily even recognised as leadership.
Whereas if your idea of how the world is ordered
is based on an ideal of collaboration and unity in
diversity then the way you want society to be
structured will be different.
Thinking of The Trinity in terms of female orgasm
– surely as taboo as anything in patriarchal society
– links with the idea of the Abject, since female
bodies have traditionally been considered (in
Kristeva’s words) ‘the source from which
defilement springs[32]’ as the fluids associated
Opposite
Queer Trinity on the Altar
Pippa King 2020

Labyrinth
While continuing to explore images through
drawing and making patterns, I researched ancient,
universal pattern and symbols such as the
triskelion, spiral and circle - ‘the great round’[25],
symbolising the archetypical creator goddess.
This led to the labyrinth, an ancient symbol used
by people of different belief systems to represent
the journey of life, the inward journey into the
soul, or enlightenment, or the path into the heart
– or womb[33] – of God. I have walked different
labyrinths as a profound spiritual experience, and
included them on drawings of people as
metaphors for the struggle to understand, but this
was the first time I learned that they could be
understood as the womb of God[34]. Theologian
Rosemary Radford Reuther claims that the most
ancient human image of the divine was the ‘primal
matrix’, the great womb within which all things
are generated[35]. Entering and leaving the
labyrinth then represents a powerful symbol of
rebirth.
Personally, I have been drawn to the physical,
ritual aspect of a labyrinth which can be walked as
a kind of bodily prayer. It is a practice that brings
together the body, mind, sprit and emotions. My
interest was drawn to the labyrinth for this
project as it is an ancient pattern that is physical
and can be participatory, involves ritual, functions
as an icon in that its purpose is to connect people
with the divine, and is a metaphor for a femalebodied
deity.
Labyrinth Journey 1 (Travel)
30 x 30 cm, relief print using recycled polystyrene, ink
on newspaper, Pippa King 2020
Labyrinth Journey 2 (Map)
31 x 31 cm, relief print using recycled polystyrene, ink
on wrapping paper, Pippa King 2020
Snake Labyrinth
20 x 20 cm, digital drawing with pattern made from a
photograph of a tree shadow, Pippa King 2020

The labyrinth is an ancient and
universal pattern, found all over the world
sometimes marked into the landscape. Its
shape echoes spirals in nature: galaxies,
clouds, spiders’ webs, ammonites, snails.
And in our bodies: they bring to mind the
brain, inner ear, intestines, umbilical cord or
womb. Charlotte Higgins suggests, ‘if the
labyrinth is a diagram of the brain it is
therefore the symbol of the imagination…
the manner in which humans make
associations.’ Freud described the
unconscious as the dark corridors of a
labyrinth, with psychoanalysis providing the
way to navigate it.
Whereas in a maze there are many
possible routes and dead ends, in a labyrinth
you can’t get lost: there is only one way in
and one way out. But it doesn’t feel like that
as the path twists and turns back on itself:
it’s confusing and disorienting. But it does
have a pattern, whether we perceive it or not
Labyrinths have a strong connection to
dance, perhaps mapping out the steps. They
are linked with weaving, also with fertility:
the labyrinth can represent the womb of god,
its journey a metaphor for rebirth.
A few years ago, I walked round the
labyrinth in the City of London, on the site of
a church that was burned down in the Great
Fire of London. I soon felt almost certain I
was going the wrong way and it was an effort
to keep walking ahead. It looked like I was
back at the start and hadn’t got anywhere,
just before I reached the centre. Walking a
labyrinth is meant to be a metaphor for the
journey of life, or inward to the soul, or a
pilgrimage on a very small space. When I
went to this labyrinth near Fenchurch Street
on a day when my work was unexpectedly
cancelled, I struggled with feeling guilty to
be walking in quiet circles while city workers
and traffic bustled all around: it did feel like
walking deliberately to a different rhythm.
On that trip, I noticed, for the first time, one
of Mark Wallinger’s labyrinths[36] on the
tube platform, a magnificent public artwork
seen at every station on the underground
that reflects the repeated and sometimes
convoluted journeys in and out of London.
Labyrinths, whether on the ground to
be walked on or small ones to be traced with
a finger, are used as a way of mediation or
prayer. It is entered alone, leaving behind
distractions. The centre is a place of stillness,
encounter and transformation, where we
face our deepest selves honestly, dwell in the
spiritual world, or find clarity. The journey
out is just as long, and a time to think on
what we will bring away from this experience
and back into the world.
While I was working on labyrinths,
the coronavirus pandemic reached the UK
and lockdown happened. It felt to me as that
the experience was like finding ourselves in
a labyrinth. All other journeys were
suddenly cancelled and we were forced
inside ourselves. It was lonely and
disorienting.
I think this enforced pause was a time
when we saw things about our world that we
hadn’t noticed before, about community,
inequality, our interconnectedness with
each other and the environment. As the
brakes were suddenly put on capitalism,
many suffered, and many more saw the
insanity and injustice of the system that is
normally accepted as ‘just the way things
are’. It was like a great glitch in the pattern,
helping us to see what we usually don’t.
I’d like to hope that as we emerge from
the global pandemic, we will bring with us
this new perspective and will use it to reset
priorities, make a fairer society and finally
act to halt the climate crisis.

WORKS

Womb of God
75 cm x 75 cm x 7 cm, imitation rabbit fur and recycled polystyrene
Pippa King 2020
Photograph Pippa King 2020

The Great Round
Video, 30s, Pippa King 2020
Three short loops of found footage that reflect the round-and-round movements of tracing a labyrinth.
This goes alongside the Womb Of God video and reflects the three persons of the Queer Trinity.
CLILCK OR TAP ON THE IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO

Womb of God
Video, 1m 57s, filmed in St Mary Magdalene, East Ham
Pippa King 2020
Music: Ubi Caritas © Schola Sanctae Scholasticae 2014, gregorian-chant-hymns.com
CLILCK OR TAP ON THE IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO

Womb of God
Pippa King 2020; photos Pippa King 2020

Queer Trinity
38 x 28 cm, hard and soft pastel on prepared paper
Pippa King 2020
Photos Pippa King 2020

Queer Trinity
GIF (here as 10 s looped movie), Pippa King, 2020
Three characters in an eternal circle dance
CLICK OR TAP TO PLAY VIDEO

Serpentine Labyrinth
Limestone, 20.5 cm x 20.5 cm x 8 cm, Pippa King 2020
Photos Pippa King 2020

Fun Fur
47 cm x 47 cm x 2 cm, Imitation fur, card, gold paper
Pippa King 2020
Photos Pippa King 2020

Fill Up the Hungry with Good Things, Pippa King 2020 (Jack Monroe donated 7,000 copies of their book to Foodbanks across the UK)

Drawn on the Body
Series of four photographic prints each 20 x 25 cm
Of a direct print on tissue paper from a labyrinth cut out of fur
Pippa King 2020, Photos Pippa King 2020

COMMENTARY

A labyrinth of fur
Early in lockdown I contributed a short reflection to
a LGBT+ event that was moved online. I needed a
two-minute video to go with my thoughts on
lockdown and labyrinth, so I filmed a hand tracing the
path of the rough polystyrene block I had used to
make some relief prints of a labyrinth. It was covered
in dried ink and made a rasping sound, but it worked.
from superior quality grey imitation rabbit fur. The
interior of this is made from polystyrene.
The Womb of God
The finished work is pleasingly strange. The
combination of labyrinth and fur is immediately hard
to reconcile. The recognisable, formal shape
contrasts with the thick, dark fur which is sensuous
and luxurious, but calls to mind a large animal’s body.
It is deeply tactile, soft and appealing, but also
somewhat large and forbidding. Especially mounted
on a square background of the same fur, it makes a
dark monolith in lights when the grey fur seems
black.
Films
A labyrinth is meant to be experienced, not looked
at, so I recreated the experience by filming a hand
‘walking’ the labyrinth. Nuns chanting in the
background (a positive song about love and
connection) add to the meditative atmosphere. An
endoscope camera was used to film inside the walls
of the labyrinth. This is accompanied by The Great
Round, where short loops of found footage reference
the circular motion of the labyrinth which in turn
references cosmic movement. The rabbit, the dance
and the drag queen link to the Queer Trinity.
This led to the thought of making a finger labyrinth
out of a different textured material, and immediately I
longed for fur. This would be both surreal (like the
quintessential surreal ‘objet[37]’), comforting (like a
pet animal or soft toy but particularly like the giant
rabbit of my dreams), but also bodily in a way that
could be sensual but could be gross or disturbing.
The process of design and testing included making a
stencil and cutting out two ‘flat’ labyrinths from fake
fur (one of the ‘walls’ and one of the path), from
which I decided I needed to construct a 3D labyrinth
with raised up ‘walls’. I tested ways of using
cardboard covered in fur to make these 3D walls and
‘paths’ of different widths.
In brighter light, the shape of the labyrinth is clear
and undulating and it has the air of a magical object,
or a fetish. Photographed on the altar of an old
church it looked heretical, transgressive, alternative,
threatening, but also scarily in-context with the range
of artefacts from different eras. Filmed or
photographed in closeup with a finger entering
between the fur walls, it becomes sexual. This
ambiguity surely makes it disconcertingly Abject.
Queer Trinity
Although there are serious ways of reimagining the
three persons of the Trinity, my version has a giant
rabbit (representing the mother archetype) a girl
(suffering for others), and a nonbinary adult, originally
a drag queen, bringing extravagance and celebration.
It plays with the idea of metaphors for god, a god
without a single gender, and also the belief that every
aspect of humanity and creation reflects the divine in
some way. I sketched these characters in a number of
different configurations responding to a number of
traditional representations of the Trinity and mostly
trying to adapt them into a circular format. These
include Rublev’s familiar design of three people sitting
around a table, and others that are extremely
hierarchical and male.
I made a stencil and constructed a 45cm diameter
labyrinth made from cardboard packaging covered in
honey-coloured fake fur mounted first on a square of
the same fur, then later on a larger gold-coloured
square mount. Finally, based on learning from this, I
made a larger and deeper 75 cm diameter labyrinth
Andrei Rublev, Public Domain
The table design eventually shifted as I wanted the
characters to be close to each other, and the circular

table became a pattern representing
interconnectedness. This has echoes of the sacred
geometry of abstract Spiritualist art.
The picture is drawn in soft and hard pastel, in a
more conservative style than I usually employ. The
gold haloes, and the drapes and colours of the
clothing, are borrowed from iconography, and it is
styled like a traditional religious picture. I framed it in
a heavy, very old, slightly broken wooden frame to
photograph it in a church context where I hoped it
would look both at home and strange. It is a surreal
icon, calling to mind characters from an alternative
fable or gospel.
Although to my mind the realisation is not
immediately Abject, this theory lies behind the
blurring of gender boundaries, and the upsetting of an
established order, if in a way that is blatantly Surreal
and fantastical. Placing three strange characters in a
work titled Trinity undermines expectations. It is
deliberately disorienting and the viewer needs to
interact with the work, use their imaginations, to
create meaning where ‘meaning collapses’.
I cut up a small copy of the picture to make three
separate miniature figures, and incorporated them
into a section of one of the circular geometric prints
inspired by church arches. A different version of this
pattern has miniature icons of the Virgin and Child.
By making the pattern containing the Trinity rotate, it
gives pleasing associations with Richard Rohr’s idea of
the Trinity as a circle dance or infinite flow.
Serpentine Labyrinth
In the popular book about labyrinths, ‘Red Thread’,
author Charlotte Higgins writes about the time she
went to see the famous labyrinth in the floor of
Chartres Cathedral. I was inspired by her comment,
‘It was as if some vast serpent had coiled itself there
in the cathedral nave’, to first draw a labyrinth in the
form of a snake, then carve it in Maltese limestone.
While stone carvings and labyrinths are found in old
churches, snakes generally are less popular. In
Christianity they are associated with Satan tempting
Eve in the garden of Eden. However, snakes, as they
shed their skin, can also be symbols of rebirth,
transformation and immortality - in fact one of the
monuments in the old church has carved wooden
snakes on it. Snakes also represent healing - the
snake coiled round a stick (as held up by Moses in
the desert) is the symbol for doctors and health
services in some countries. Snakes can also represent
fertility, either represented straight as phallic symbols
or coiled around the goddess as in Cretan statues.
The coiled snake can represent the umbilical cord
connecting us to ‘Mother Earth’.
I am happy with the ambiguity of a very familiar
shape, the labyrinth, made of something unfamiliar.
I’m pleased with using a symbolic creature that while
unusual in the context of a labyrinth is perfectly
logical – as labyrinths are also about rebirth and
healing. Particularly I like an ‘icon’ with ancient,
female-bodied imagery for the divine.
It appeals to me as both superficially beautiful but
also slightly disturbing, whether for people who fear
snakes (a common phobia) or Christians who fear it
looks like worshipping Satan. The stone is smooth
and gives the desire to touch it, and this carving is
about the size of a ‘finger labyrinth’ designed to be
traced with the hand as a form of mediation, but the
thought of touching a snake is repellent to many. This
might make it an Abject Icon. This contrasts with the
deep plush of the fur labyrinth, which suggests a soft
and strokeable animal, and the contrast itself is
pleasing. As stated, I don’t believe there is any one
way of describing the mystery of god or the universe;
we need many metaphors or image.
Fun Fur
The first 3D labyrinth, intended as a prototype, was
made from obviously synthetic fur, as used for a
cheap teddy bear or a pencil case. It gave it a retro,
1970s feel, like something from a bizarre toyshop.
But it worked surprisingly well despite that, perhaps
because it made so little sense. Again, the material
jarred with the ancient formal shape. The colour and
texture of this fur photographed well, and for me it
linked with my previous rabbit-inspired project which
involved unpicked soft toys, so I took it with me to
the church locations and took some photos. I initially
mounted it on a square fur background, but changed
it to gold, to reference an icon. Despite the colours
making a bright combination, the contrast in textures
make it pleasing.
Drawn on the Body
In exploring the labyrinth, I made a number of
experimental drawings and prints using different
materials. My first attempt at cutting out a fur
labyrinth was spindlier than I wanted, so I glued it to
a support and made some prints. I took these photos
of a direct print made in black ink on pale pink tissue
paper, which I held up to the light and allowed to fold
and crease in various directions.
The effect is abstract and bodily due to the fleshy
colour and folds, especially when the hairiness is
visible on the print. The shape of the print on the

paper also references traces on a landscape, as if the
connection is with the earth. When the photos were
laid on a wooden bench in the church, the grain of
the wood reflected the lines of the distorted
labyrinth. There are aspects of the womb of god, the
Abject, exploration of the self or the body, and
sensuality.
.
Location photography
Without the option of presenting my work in a
gallery setting in 2020, I photographed it in two
contrasting church buildings. The first was the same
church I visited last year, a beautiful Norman church
building where I filmed the Womb of God against a
12 th Century wall alongside a Jacobean monument.
The other is a 1930s Baptist church that is used for
the local Food Bank – which is why the context of
these photos includes bulk packs of food and copies
of Tin Can Cook. I’m grateful to the Parish of East
Ham and Bonny Downs Baptist Church for allowing
me to use their buildings. Thanks also to Georgie
King Clift for assisting with the photography.
Here it was the contrast with everyday objects that
appealed. The gold icon shone against a slightly
battered wall, but the snake somehow fitted in
amongst the boxes, with its colour and shapes
echoed in the cream panelling and the light giving a
softness to the stone. This contrasted strongly with
the picture of the same work in the Anglican church
alongside a coiled red rope, echoing its shape in a
different way. This has a far more magical,
transgressive air, especially as the rope is used to
restrict access to the area near the altar.
The context of the ancient church gave my work
more apparent significance as icons or artefacts, in a
context where there are monuments, icons and
religious art from many centuries. The deep colours,
and ancient walls added a feeling of richness and a
mystical, possibly intimidating quality. By contrast it is
only the wooden cross at the front that obviously
identifies the Baptist church as a religious building
rather than any other community hall from that era.
Likewise, I feel the softness of the fur of the Womb
of God labyrinth is highlighted in the Baptist hall,
whereas it seems dark and imposing on a traditional
altar, like a portal to another dimension.
I ask myself how much my own feelings affect these
perceptions. Apart from working more tentatively in
the Anglican church out of respect for a grade 1
listed building, that church and its traditions are
unfamiliar, possibly alien, to me whereas the Baptist
hall has a scruffy familiarity.
Right: White Snake, Pippa King 2020

About
Pippa King is an East London based artist who works in drawing, print, photography
and sculpture. She leads workshops locally and at events.
This work is the outcome of an MA by Project at The School of Art, Architecture
and Design (formerly The Cass) at London Metropolitan University. Get in touch via
the website if you are interested in a printed version of this book or prints of the
works - or to talk about commissions, collaboration or workshops.
www.pippakingart.com
Insta @philippa.king
ABJECT ICONS copyright © Pippa King 2020
Words, artworks and photography © Pippa King unless stated otherwise.
Design by Pippa King and published using Bote e-publishing
All rights reserved.
.

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Fragmentation
Pippa King 2020
Reflection of Christ Church, Spitalfields obscured by graffiti, with
blue sky in windows behind. Taken on Zenit-E camera
Back cover:
Womb of God
Video still, Pippa King 2020

Pippa King 2020