Original acrylic art and religious "Madonna" icon on canvas board, approximately 8"/20cm square, with a gloss varnish. I am painting several Madonna pieces working in various mother goddess figures into the Mary/Madonna image, inspired in part by seeing so many religious icons in Roman galleries and particularly later Renaissance Mary imagery incorporating aspects of Athena, Artemis, etc.

For this icon I chose "Mary as Athena", or Minerva. Though often overlooked as a mother goddess, together with Artemis/Diana and Hestia/Vesta she is the perpetual virgin (a feature of Mary in extrabiblical Orthodox tradition), and given her central role as a founder and protector of the city as well as the goddess associated most with initiation of youths, she is by nature maternal, hence why I depicted her cradling the infant Herakles/Hercules, who is often depicted alongside Athena/Minerva, particularly in Etruscan art. The background is gold paint and I chose to work around the Madonna iconography some colour, inspired by the Ognyena Maria or "fiery Mary" figure of East Orthodox Old Believers. This is a recurring motif through my recent Mary/Madonna canvas icons.