The third in my trio of Marian-minded artists, new to the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, is Janet McKenzie, whose studio in rural Vermont has become the epicenter of a quiet revolution aimed at nothing less than overturning the millennia-long white patriarchal focus of Christian art. McKenzie first sent shockwaves through the convention-bound sacred art scene, when she won a 1999 competition to find a new image of Jesus at the Millenium with her portrait of Christ as a person of color, modelled on a woman of color. McKenzie's images celebrate women, especially the Virgin Mary both as a contemplative and a devoted mother, reflecting the artist's mission to empower women as “sacred beings who are the foundation of life." Her work champions diversity, equity and inclusion, values in short supply these days. She paints Asian Madonnas with origami cranes, a Native American Holy Family, Mary Magdelene as a woman of color, the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth as Polynesians, as well as gender-bending images of Jesus. (John Kohan)
