Scheduled for Publication: January 2027.

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This collection of essays analyzes the oil paintings by Raul Pizarro for the exhibition, Pagan Practices for Sanctification. The paintings were exhibited at El Centro Gabriela Mistral (The GAM) in Santiago, Chile. This analysis was requested by and authorized by Pizarro. It is currently being formatted for publication with Parvenu Pressworks in Portland, Oregon.

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Imagine deserving a place in history, lionized for your humanity, lived truth, grit, and vulnerability. Imagine the emotional collapse of a young girl, the Virgin Mary, as she receives her 'gift'. Raúl Pizarro shows us new images of history and Bible lore using his familiarity with contemporary truths. He believes people were not born to become fables to be interpreted to suit individual needs, but to live lives and experience fun, tragedy, community, bonding, and betrayal—the way we know and live our lives—stripping the images we are all trained to recognize by using modern genre scenes that are accessible to the station where those characters would live today.

His subjects are in the throes of daily existence without perfection and veneration imposed upon them by strangers. And offer empathy to those characters we ignore or look down upon who surround us.

The people in the stories you know may not have been born to be reduced to the ghosts and deities who serve our deficits, fears, and desires. They were friends and workers. They had families. They felt pain and joy. They were imperfect, nuanced, thinking, and maybe even funny. They were like you: like the humans you know.

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