Massacre of the Innocents Series

ince the days of King Herod when he ordered the killing of all boys under the age of 2, imagery of the Massacre of the Innocents has been used to represent unjustified killing. The Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens created the biblical fable around 1612. Bruegel the Elder (translated the scene to a 16th-century Netherlandish village, where the Flemish villagers are attacked by Spanish soldiers and German mercenaries (pictured in the background). My interpretation brings full circle the present-day massacre of innocents re-appropriating the cowbell. The cowbell used by slavers to find captured slaves now serves as an earring. These pieces highlight the senseless loss of life through ignorance, hatred, or fear.