The Mystery of Faith

The substrate of this artwork is a box with 4 drawers. At the center sits a shell (that my mother collected about 90 years ago) as the theme throughout the piece. The exterior front is not pictured: my painted scene of St Augustine interacting with a boy with his shell at the seashore. The left interior shows the ocean and a typical collection of sand and sea star from the beach, with 3 living fish painted below, as a reminder that such collections come from the thriving ocean. The center depicts scientific names in a trinity of three shell specimens. The right interior shows the categorized, documented scientific collection of shell specimens. Bridging religion and science is Art with my depiction of Botticelli's Birth of Venus upon her shell. The vignette is encased within a clear acrylic cube for a cleanly cohesive display.