To appear beautiful before God

During a trip to Seoul, I visited the main mosque in South Korea. I was struck by how the Muslim women prepared and applied makeup before prayer in front of the mihrab niche. I sketched these scenes inside the women’s prayer room, and I have since been able to produce an edition of them. In the linocut series, «Presenting Beauty Before God, ” it was important for me to emphasize the flow of the drapery of the believing girls' garments—as if they were dissolving their flesh—as well as the detail of drawing eyeliner before meeting God. The color palette is deliberate: it corresponds to one of the primary colors in Islamic art and to the moment of twilight transition. Each print is dedicated to a specific daily prayer: Fajr (dawn prayer), Dhuhr (noon prayer), Asr (afternoon prayer), and Maghrib (sunset prayer). All images depict worshippers undergoing spiritual and physical transformation.