Station IV: Jesus Meets His Mother

Colm McCarthy

As a highly lapsed, but always uncertain, Irish Catholic boy, I was a little reluctant to take part in this project. I grew up steeped in this symbolism. In Ireland in the 1970s and `80s we were “up to our necks in priests.” There was no separation of church and state, and so the church’s influence was felt in all aspects of our society. It still is.
Even after all these years, and though I live on another continent, I could not escape the nagging feeling that this project might be somehow sacrilegious or distasteful, and so I chose two stations that I felt were “safe”: this piece and “Jesus Meets the Pious Women of Jerusalem.”
The latter became far from “safe” as soon as my brain starting whirring, but I think this piece has quite a traditional feel. I simply wanted to portray grief. The grief of an Iraqi mother, an Afghan mother, an American mother. Any mother. My mother’s grief at the death of my father, just a few months before. An inconsolable, almost animal-like howl of loss that I hope to never hear again but know sadly that I will.
“It’s not fair, is it?” she cried over and over again. And all I could say was, “No, Ma, it’s not fair.”
Hopelessness. Helplessness. Loss. Grief.

Colm McCarthy was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is a self-taught photographer and printmaker, specializing in photographic prints on non-traditional surfaces. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

colmmccarthy.net

Silver gelatin, acrylic & varnish on copper, 18” x 20”