Artist: Mariano Vargas

Fine art paper, size 56x43cm, edition of 7 (+ 2 A.P.).

Popeess Johanna is a legendary figure who is believed to have held the papal office as Pope John around AD 855. In some medieval writings she is also called Agnes.

The legend about a female pope goes like this: Johanna is said to have been born in Mainz of English parents. Possibly in her adolescence she disguised herself as a man and fled with her lover to Athens to study there. After some time she moved to Rome. She was warmly received there, and the cardinals admired her so much for her learning that she was unanimously elected pope. No one knew she was a woman until, after a pontificate of two years and a few months, she gave birth to a child in a procession. She died on the spot, and subsequent papal processions avoided that place.

Also available in other size, contact us about prizes: info@sandvoort.gallery

Mariano Vargas (born in San Fernando, lives and works in Spain) discovered the art and the woman as a child, thanks to the great Renaissance painters. While his brothers were reading comics, he would spend hours reading the art books that his grandfather used to collect. Thus, his imagination became enriched by those women with white skin and reddish hair, sometimes modest and other times free in their nudity.

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As an adolescent, he would see Venus in the women around him. He started painting them, first taking photos of the girls that inspired him and then transporting them into his world by painting them. His mind bustled and painting could no longer satisfy his soul’s creative needs. It was then that he came across photography as a means of expressing his inner world, allowing the protagonists to have real skin.