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Noli Me Tangere, Museo Sant’Orsola

oil on canvas

triptych 200 x 115 cm, 200 x 85 cm, 200 x 115 cm

[Curator note: Morgane Lucquet Laforgue]

Between 1 June - 2 July 2023, and 2 September - 1 October 2023, in the exhibition Oltre Le Mura di Sant’Orsola at the future Museo Sant’Orsola in Florence, the large scale triptych, Noli Me Tangere, will be exhibited in the large room which hosted the second of the ex-convent’s chapels, built in the 16th century for the nun’s exclusive use. The introduction of the Cloister Laws forbade contact between the nuns who lived in cloisters and the outside world. The area, recently restored, today welcomes the work of the first artist in residence of the future Museum of Sant’Orsola, Sophia Kisielewska-Dunbar (born in London in 1990). All the while benefitting from a creative stipend, housing, and an artist’s studio from 15 June and 15 September 2022, Sophia developed an artistic project as a dialogue with the dispersed cultural heritage of the former monastery. 

Her work began with the study and research of the convent artworks through an analysis of the available sources. The artist immersed herself in the visual culture to which the nuns and laywomen who lived in Sant’Orsola were exposed to. During the Renaissance, the monastery hosted hundreds of women, as did other Florentine convents. Some were sisters, but others there were also widows or unmarried women under termporary custody for both protection and education. This practice, known as serbanza  (custodial care), represented the main route to female protection and education. The images played a fundamental role in the moral formation of the young women, art served to transmit the ideas of chastity and obedience. Because artistic professions were for the most part the domain of men, the concept of femininity was interpreted through the perspective of the male gaze. Sophia Kisielewska-Dunbar inserted herself into this cultural tradition to disrupt its conventions, proposing new modes of representation. 

The result of the research and experiments conducted during her artist in residence period at Sant’Orsola is a monumental triptych made of oil on canvas. The work was conceived in reference to the historical decoration of the convent, which in the 14th century held a triptych by Bernardo Daddi and, in the 17th century, three Baroque altarpieces. The title, Noli me tangere, recalls the subject of the glazed terracotta from the workshop of Santi Buglioni (middle of the 16th century), previously in the convent garden. The latin words, ‘Noli me tangere’ (Don’t touch me), refer to the figure of the risen Jesus who appeared to Mary Magdalene but would not permit her to touch him. 

Sophia transforms and repeats the traditional iconography in modern terms, depicting at the centre of the triptych a female figure surrounded by a gathering of roughly forty men, gathered on the side panels of the triptych, who seek in vain to grab her. Each male figure is taken from Florentine paintings, drawings, engravings, or bas-reliefs that portray scenes of violence against women. The male figures painted by Sophia are reinterpretations of characters taken from the scenes of the martyrdom of female saints, which were primarily exposed to the gaze of the religious women and pilgrims within the convents. These visual elements are assembled like a collage to establish a counter-narrative; the woman, rather than submit to the bullying of the men, escapes their grasp and claims the inviolability of her own body. The artist has chosen to show her as out of focus and in movement to draw attention to her actions, and to avoid perpetuating the stereotypes of representations of women, which are too often commodified and sexualised. In her hand she holds a book, a symbol of her intellect and autonomy.

The work has been purchased by the future Museo Sant’Orsola to form the nucleus of its permanent contemporary collection.