An Iconography of Connection and Gentleness
In the exhibition Like a Virgin, Fenx takes hold of the figure of the Madonna to transpose her into our present day. Far from any religious or provocative intent, the artist uses this universal visual language to explore deeply human themes: gentleness, dignity, and the strength of the bond.
Between Heritage and Modernity
Raised in contact with Christian references, Fenx recontextualizes this iconography without seeking to illustrate it. His Madonnas are not objects of devotion but embodied figures, marked by the imperfections of daily life and carried by an inner light. Here, spirituality becomes an intimate experience, a space for reparation.
Reinvented Symbols
The artist’s work repurposes classic motifs to give them new meaning:
- The Cross: It is no longer a denominational sign, but a symbol of sacrifice and commitment to others. It embodies the responsibility and vulnerability of those who choose to help.
- Purity: Under a title that nods to Pop culture (Like a Virgin), it no longer designates a moral ideal, but the possibility of a new beginning—a reinvention of the self.
A Luminous Presence
Through his paintings and installations, Fenx allows the sacred and the profane to coexist. His female figures assert a relational power capable of welcoming and sustaining. The use of salvaged materials and light installations highlights this idea of transformation: light is not a promise of salvation, but a metaphor for our human capacity to remain standing and to mend what is broken.
In summary, Fenx does not offer a religious iconography, but an iconography of connection. His works promise nothing; they are simply there, present, embodying a spirituality without dogma where the sacred nestles in the discreet gesture and the persistence of the bond.
Fenx (1974)
Pax Americana, 2025
Acrylic on linen canvas
195x130 cm
Signée
Unique
Pax Americana: Myth Confronting Reality
In Pax Americana, Fenx explores the figure of the Madonna as a central icon of Western culture, here transposed into the American imagination.
This Madonna subtly embodies the artist's inner paradox. Having grown up in the 1980s, fueled by American pop culture and consumerism, Fenx acknowledges the profound influence of this long-idealized culture that shaped his vision and pictorial language. Today, this founding reference is confronted with a more complex and nuanced perspective, at times tinged with disillusionment, that questions the notions of freedom, myth, and inspiration.
This Madonna, with a posture both relaxed and sovereign, possesses a quiet authority and a paradoxical modernity. Draped in the American flag as a veil, she embodies a delicate tension between the sacred and the profane, between faith, elegance, and disenchantment. The Mustang, weathered by time, becomes a metaphor for a weakened America, oscillating between mythologized grandeur and vulnerability. Fenx composes a complex image where the indomitable and spiritual woman, free and carrying a sense of hope, becomes both the symbol and the witness of a world in mutation.
This Madonna, at once accessible and untouchable, neither preaches nor condemns. She embodies a lucid hope: that of a possible reconciliation between the ideal and the real, between attachment and clarity, in a world marked by fractures and tensions.
Fenx (1974)
Il ne faut pas prendre les enfants du Bon Dieu pour des canards sauvages, 2025
Acrylic on linen canvas
195 x 130 cm
Signée
Unique
“Il ne faut pas prendre les enfants du Bon Dieu pour des canards sauvages” (Don’t Mistake the Good Lord’s Children for Wild Ducks) :
Behind the icon, a woman of flesh and blood.
In this major work, Fenx gives the figure of the Madonna a face and a name: Sonia. This woman, whose courage saved lives during the November 13 attacks in Paris, embodies here a secular sainthood. Fully aware of the risks to herself and her loved ones, she chose to intervene.
Everyday Heroism :
While Sonia rejects the label of "heroine," Fenx sees in her gesture the absolute expression of courage: one that is neither self-interested nor spectacular, but which places the common good above oneself. The “Anti Hero” t-shirt (a nod to the skateboard brand) underscores this refusal of posture. It is the act of an ordinary person whose humanity becomes extraordinary through her clarity of mind.
Sacrifice Reinvented :
The lamb, a traditional symbol of purity and offering, here leaves religious dogma behind to become universal. Innocence is no longer an abstraction: it is carried and defended. The Madonna stands on the ridge line between violence and life, assuming the possibility of sacrifice to preserve the Other.
A Dialogue of Codes :
In the background, the inscription “Agnus Dei” in Cholo writing, a graffiti style originating from gang culture and urban warfare, creates a symbolic collision.
Fenx brings together Christlike sacrifice, street violence, and contemporary courage within a striking urban aesthetic.
A Humanity of Resistance :
Thus, the "Good Lord’s children" are no longer figures in a stained-glass window, but those beings who, regardless of their culture or religion, embody a resistance made of gentleness and responsibility in the face of the world's brutality.
Fenx (1974)
Madonna Laguna, 2024
Acrylic on linen canvas
195x130 cm
Signée
Unique
Madonna Laguna: The Matrix Work
More than just a painting, Madonna Laguna is the foundational work that structured the exhibition “Like A Virgin.” It represents the masterful convergence of Fenx’s creative cycles: featuring Californian architecture, the lush vegetation of Palm Springs, and the unique mastery of perspective that defined his previous series. In this piece, Fenx creates a dialogue between Marian iconography and the clean lines of the Californian imagination.
The Madonna, draped in a veil and mantilla, appears with natural majesty in a landscape bathed in blue and pink light. Seated at the edge of a pool, she leaves dogma behind in favor of gentleness. Her proud posture and pensive gaze, at once sovereign and deeply human, make her a presence suspended between tradition and modernity.
The strength of this work also lies in the balance of the artist's technique: figurative painting of surgical precision meets a freer, almost abstract brushstroke, translating spontaneous emotion.
Haloed yet partially bared, this nursing Madonna is no longer a frozen icon but a symbol of universal motherhood and tenderness. Between the geometry of the architect-designed house and the freedom of nature, Fenx sets the scene in a space that is both familiar and symbolic, a promise of a dogma-free spirituality where the sacred embraces popular culture in timeless serenity.
Fenx (1974)
Three Stripes, 2026
Acrylic on linen canvas
160 x 160 cm
Signée
Unique
Three Stripes: "The Reconciliation of Worlds"
With Three Stripes, Fenx revisits the theme of the Pietà, offering an interpretation stripped of all tragedy. Here, the scene no longer rests on sacrifice, but on the power of an elementary gesture: a hand placed delicately on a shoulder.
A Dialogue of Contrasts :
The work portrays an encounter between two aesthetics that seem entirely opposed. On one side, a female figure with assertive elegance, the embodiment of a conquering and serene femininity. On the other, a young man defined by urban codes, whose posture defuses all pathos. Fenx does not seek to illustrate dominance, but rather coexistence. In this face-to-face encounter, clothing becomes a social marker that empathy ultimately transcends.
The Sacred in Discreet :
Attention By removing traditional religious symbols, spirituality shifts toward the human. This almost imperceptible gesture of support is neither an act of rescue nor of duty; it is pure presence. It is an "iconography of connection" where the woman is no longer the one mourning a martyr, but the one sustaining the present.
A Peaceful Reading :
At a time when discourse tends to polarize genders and generations, Three Stripes proposes a common ground. The Pietà thus becomes an active gesture, a metaphor for reclaimed dignity where hope lies in the simple and powerful capacity to stand for another.
Fenx (1974)
ChatgPythies, 2025
Acrylic on linen canvas
130 x 195 cm
Signée
Unique
ChatgPythies: The Oracle of the Digital Age
With ChatgPythies, Fenx presents the most minimalist work of the exhibition. Set against an azure blue background of magnetic intensity, reminiscent of both his iconic Californian pools and an infinite marine horizon, two female figures face each other in an ethereal void.
A Play of Fertile Ambiguities :
The work plays with our perceptions. These two women, possessing the grace characteristic of Fenx’s style, seem held captive by an invisible mirror. Their hands draw near without ever touching, reinterpreting with delicate tension the gesture of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. A halo of smoke floats above them, evoking the motif of the female smoker from his previous series (or Pax Americana), while their virtual reality headsets merge with the appearance of diving masks, immersing us in a world between worlds.
Technology as a New Sacred :
These contemporary "Pythiae" no longer look at the real world: they receive. They do not prophesy: they interpret the flow. The headset is no longer a tool but a technological veil, the modern equivalent of the sacred cloud that enveloped Greek prophetesses before a revelation. Immersed in light, they become mediators of a digital divine, of a diffuse knowledge circulating through networks like the ancient breath that once inspired oracles. Fenx questions our relationship with artificial intelligence: these new presences to which we now entrust our doubts, our frailties, and our intimate impulses, seeking in the algorithm a guidance once reserved for prayer or confession.
A Spirituality of the Flow :
In this zone of uncertainty between flesh and data, the work confronts us with a new sense of the sacred. Fenx suggests that artificial light is becoming a spiritual matter. For him, truth may no longer reside in traditional religious symbols, but in the vibrations and imperfections of the digital realm. ChatgPythies does not propose a new belief, but a question: what if the oracle of the 21st century resided precisely there, at the meeting point between ancient mystery and artificial intelligence?
Fenx (1974)
In Corpus Fidei, 2025
Acrylic on linen canvas
Chassis encadré en forme de croix hauteur max 195 x largeur max 130 cm
Signée
Unique
In Corpus Fidei (In the Body of Faith)
With the work In Corpus Fidei, Fenx once again appropriates religious codes to strip them of their dogma and charge them with humanity. He shifts a sacred liturgical gesture toward the realm of empathy, the body, and the struggle.
This Black woman, rising with arms outstretched like a cross, transforms suffering into a dignified and luminous resistance. This piece reconnects with an earlier series, the artist’s tribute to African women, the true pillars of a strength that is both humble and monumental.
Here, the female figure transcends the simple religious archetype to become a metaphor for the human condition. Her struggle goes beyond the physical dimension: it becomes an inner battle, a fight for survival, dignity, and faith, one shared by all women facing social and family constraints. Rooted in social reality, she embodies the resilience of those who carry family, history, and Memory.
By subverting the Everlast logo, Fenx gives it a liturgical significance. It is no longer just about boxing, but a metaphor for human endurance in the face of pain. Between the ring and the cross, the artist paints the portrait of a being in a spiritual battle where resistance itself is sacred.
Like Christ sacrificing himself for others, this woman carries within her the idea of self-giving, of shared suffering, and of embodied faith. She thus becomes the symbol of a contemporary Christ-like figure, an offered humanity that is carnal, sacrificial, and transcendent.
Works on paper:
