Angela Yarber first encountered iconography when the American embassy in Moscow was bombed in 1999. Hunkered in a Russian orthodox church, Angela gazed at the brooding whitewashed faces of male saints that filled every inch of the sanctuary with their hands raised in benediction. "Where are all the women?" she asked herself.

This question sparked a journey of discovery and artistic practice that coincided with her own spiritual journey. Raised in the Bible Belt, Angela was invited into an Evangelical congregation as a teenager and thereafter enrolled in a religious affiliated liberal arts college. As a professional dancer, she initially studied the history of Christian dance and then went on to pursue postgraduate study in Women, Gender and Sexuality, and a PhD in Art and Religion.

The memory of her early experience with icons remained vivid in her mind and Angela undertook a pilgrimage to St. Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, which houses the oldest collection of Christian icons in the world, in 2005. As she entered the monastery, Angela was greeted by the largest assortment of icons that she had ever seen. A pantheon of male saints engulfed her.

Above the altar was a triptych of icons. In the centre was Jesus, who was crucified, died and rose again. The icon on the right depicted the binding of Isaac, which according to Jewish tradition, is a celebration of God's intervention when Abraham nearly slaughtered his only child. On the left side was Jephthah's daughter - the nameless child in the Book of Judges who is sacrificed by her father in fulfilment of a vow that he would make a burnt offering of the first person who emerged from his house when he returned victorious from battle. The only female icon whom Angela could find was not spared or resurrected, but violently slaughtered by her own father. Why was the daughter slayed where the sons were spiritually transformed by redemptive sacrifice? What does this tell us about the role of women and their representation in the Church?

While completing her PhD in Art and Religion, Angela broadened her study of iconography to the Hindu and Buddhist traditions and was engulfed in another pantheon of male saints at the temple of the 1,000 Buddhas in Thailand. Angela continued to ask, "Where are all the women?" Then, she began to wonder, "Where are all the queer women? Where are all the queer women of colour?"

In 2010, she decided to put her wonder on canvas, painting a triptych of  Sophia, the embodiment of Greek wisdom, for a group exhibition. In this painting, Angela gave traditional iconography a folk twist in an attempt to make it more accessible. Emboldened by the works of myriad feminist scholars in religion, Angela's icons aim to subvert traditional - and often patriarchal - depictions of a virtually all-male sainthood.

Thus began a new life-long project: Holy Women Icons. Now, over 150 icons fill the ever-growing collection, with over 125 sold in galleries, homes, schools, and faith communities across the world. They're joined by a  book about their stories, Holy Women Icons, that includes reproductions of Angela's folk feminist icons accompanied by an essay on each woman. Viewers are invited to join Angela on her iconographic journey in the Holy Women Icons Contemplative Coloring Book, published in 2016.

With over 150 folk-feminist icons, myriad articles about their lives published in print and online, and with a handful of online and in-person courses inspired by these revolutionary women, Angela created the Holy Women Icons Project as a non-profit organisation, seeking to empower marginalised women by telling the stories of revolutionary holy women through art, writing, and special events. Since then, it has become Tehom Center Publishing, a press publishing feminist and queer authors, with a commitment to elevating BIPOC writers.

With over 150 revolutionary women from history and myth from a diversity of spiritual traditions, cultures, and historical epochs, Angela seeks to offer a corrective to the cisheteropatriarchal white-washing of spiritual figures across wisdom traditions, imagining a more just and beautiful world where the oppressed see representations of ourselves as holy.

Today, Angela is a ten-time award-winning author, international bestselling artist, professor, retreat leader and director of Tehom Center Publishing. With nearly two decades of experience as a Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and twenty years as an ordained queer clergywoman, Angela writes, paints, teaches, coaches, speaks, and leads retreats all over the world. Her work has been featured in Forbes, NPR, HuffPo, Ms Magazine, The Advocate, the television show Tiny House Nation, and more.

In 2022, Angela collaborated with Dr Azelina Flint (Co-I of the Contemporary Women Icons Project) to co-curate an exhibition, Queering the Dream, at the Lancaster Priory in the UK. You can read more about that exhibition in this local press coverage.

Listen to Angela talk about her work in this public interview.

Artist's Website

www.angelayarber.org

Tehom Center Publishing

Tehom Center - Celebrating Feminist and Queer Authors