In response to the early Christian tenets of conduct, known colloquially as the seven heavenly virtues and the seven deadly sins, comes Patrick Duegaw’s Pierced by Dogma—a series of paintings that explore what the artist posits are “countless and mundane trials of the human condition.” Begun in 1997, this body of work, which is a part of Duegaw’s ongoing project The Innumerable Anxieties, portrays humorously nightmarish large-scale figures engaged in a myriad of circus-like spectacles: allegorical images that illustrate seemingly infinite, and uniquely personal musings, that meditate on an individual’s ongoing relationship with anxiety. The circus becomes the backdrop for scenes of self-perpetuated melodrama. The ‘performers’ in these paintings provide a medium through which viewers may vicariously partake of danger, albeit through the benign perils of manufactured stress.

The exhibition catalogue is available for sale at the Ulrich Museum of Art, or may be viewed online via Issuu.