Talking Tuesday: Theotokos Covers the World

I don't have anything profound to say today, but I do want to share an icon by Ivanka Demchuk.  She is an Eastern Rite Catholic artist in Ukraine, and her work is startlingly beautiful and profound.  Her etsy shop has many different and wonderful prints of her work, and while the post office in her part of the country is closed, she has said she will ship out as soon as possible.

I find her iconography incredibly moving.  I can't stop thinking about the image above in particular, as it seems to me that the Theotokos is absorbing all the chaos of the world below.  In traditional iconography, the first layer of the icon is done in what is called "roskrysh" or chaos.  The egg tempera pigment is left deliberately rustic and mottled, so that when it is applied, there is a grainy character to it, similar to the pigmentation in the circle around the Theotokos.  As the various layers of light are applied on top of that, the roskrysh is absorbed into the higher lights, but still shows through a bit, symbolizing the chaos that underlies all creation.  

Ms. Demchuk's Transfiguration and Appearance of Christ are similarly profound.