St. Francis as Cyborg

After he found that people would not listen to him, the Catholic saint, Francis of Assisi, preached to the birds instead. Iconographically in Catholic art he is often represented with birds and / or with a wolf. His hand and his temples are also usually depicted as displaying the bloody evidence of his stigmata. The image above is actually based upon an iconic image of St Francis (which I found on the internet through a Google search, but cannot for the life of me find the author!). I have always been attracted to images of St. Frank. Although I am aware that this is not entirely rational, part of this attraction has to do with his relationship to animals - he seems compassionate towards and, of all of the saints that I am aware of, more in touch with 'nature' (by which you could read a more progressive characterization such as 'the larger ecosystems of which he is a part', if you like, but saying things like that gets so damn awkward). This painting wants to address the issue of how our changing relationship with technology changes our relationship with 'nature'. Embedded in this is also a question about representation and how it relates to power and control, which is why I chose to also include the photorealistic representations of animals alongside my rather rudimentary acrylic sketches.