On the Art and Sexual Politics of Petrophilia: In Anticipation of SJ Fuerst's New Exhibition

SJ Fuerst: Agate (2026) part of the exhibition  

Madonnas on the Rocks at Il Kamra ta' Fuq 

(20 Mar - 5 April 2026) 

 

'Just as every woman is born of a single rib, so too 

are all rocks and stones descended from one enormous ancestor ...'

 

 

I. 

 

The Virgin of the Rocks is the title of not one but two oil paintings by Leonardo of the same subject and identical in composition except for several details, some having symbolic weight and some simply relating to technical aspects of light and colour.   

 

The slightly larger version, which is generally considered the earlier of the two (c. 1483-86), hangs in the Louvre [click here]; the other recently restored version, dated between 1495 and 1508, hangs in the National Gallery, London [click here].  

 

Both were originally painted on wooden panels, but the Louvre version has been transferred to canvas. And both depict the Virgin Mary and child Jesus with the infant John the Baptist and an angel, Uriel, in a rocky setting (a non-biblical event, but a popular theme within medieval Christianity).

 

Both works are examples of the Renaissance painting technique known as sfumato, used to soften the transition between colours, and perfected by Leonardo. If you like your images to be smoked like your fish, then this is the technique for you - although it is in much greater evidence in the Louvre painting than the London work, which is sharper, less subtle, and I think slightly more sinister.     

 

Still, all this is essentially just artistic context allowing me to write in anticipation of a new solo exhibition by one of my favourite contemporary artists - the American figurative painter SJ Fuerst - opening on the 20th of this month, at Il Kamra ta' Fuq gallery (Malta) [1]: Madonnas on the Rocks ...      

 

 

II.   

 

Obviously, I cannot yet comment on the works, although the image released above by the artist on her Instagram page [click here], undoubtedly gives a good indication of what to expect; namely, images of beautiful women painted directly onto slices of stone, constituting a stunning and highly imaginative art of petrology.  

 

The work shown is titled Agate and one assumes that it is, therefore, painted on this common (but cryptocrystalline) variety of quartz, known both for its translucency and hardness. 

 

Perhaps less well known, is the fact that the stone was named by the Ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist Theophrastus [2], who discovered it and also famously wrote a book on all kinds of rocks and stones, in which he classified them based on their behaviour when heated and not just more obvious common properties. 

 

Theophrastus also considered the practical uses of various stones; such as the minerals necessary for the production of various pigments of paint. 

 

Ms Fuerst will be very aware of all this, I'm sure. For she's not only a hugely talented artist, but also a very well-read and intelligent one, who knows exactly what she's doing and what she wishes to achieve. And just like old Theo himself, she's very systematic and considered in her work; they may indicate playfulness, but there's nothing slapdash about her pictures. 

 

Readers who visit her website - sjfuesrt.com - will appreciate what I mean, whilst readers who recall my post 'Petrophilia: On the Geochemical Origin of Life and the Religious Worship of Rocks' (25 Jan 2024) - click here - will appreciate why I am so excited by Fuerst's new show [3].

 

Any male readers, however, who are thinking of attending should note that the artist has, somewhat controversially, forbidden ownership of the paintings by men and will be donating 20% of the sales to a women's rights organisation. 

 

I only hope that some of those organisations work with women who have fled from those nations and regions of the world where they still practice stoning (lapidation) as a method of capital punishment against women charged with illicit sexual activity [4]. This includes nations such as Afghanistan, Iran, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Yemen [5] - but not Malta, as far as I'm aware. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The small independent gallery is located on the first floor above the New Life Bar, 4 Church Square, Mqabba. The exhibition runs from 20 March until 5 April, 2026 and is curated by Melanie Erixon. For more information visit the website by clicking here.

 

[2] Originally from Lesbos, Theophrastus was mentored by Aristotle and eventually succeeded the latter as head of the Lyceum, in Athens. He is considered by some to be the father of botany, for a number of groundbreaking studies on plants.

 

[3] See also my post on Gauguin's painting La Vague (1888), which features giant black rocks off of the coast of Brittany (13 August 2023): click here. 

 

[4] Although men - particularly gay men - may also be subjected to stoning, the vast majority of the victims are reported to be women and it's generally accepted that women are not treated equally and fairly by the law courts in those countries where stoning remains a legal form of punishment.

 

[5] Readers will note that these are all Muslim countries, although, interestingly, stoning is not mentioned in the Quran. It is, however, a sharia-prescribed punishment on the basis of hadith (sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad), although one that is rarely carried out, even if Islamists call for its full reinstatement and the provision for stoning is retained in law.   

 

 

For a selection of other posts on Torpedo the Ark discussing the work of SJ Fuerst, please click here. 

 

 

Continuous as the Stars That Shine ...

Osterglocken (SA/2023)

 

"When all at once I saw a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils ..." 

 

I. 

 

Often known by its Latin name - Narcissus [1] - the daffodil was as highly regarded in the ancient world as it is within the modern era: Greek philosopher and floraphile Theophrastus, for example, often mentioned them in his botanical writings; as did the Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder. 

 

However, it was left to the 18th-century Swedish botanist Linnaeus to formally identify them as a genus in his Species Plantarum (1753), at which time there were only six known species, whereas now there are over fifty (although the exact number remains disputed) [2].   

 

And it was left to the British Romantic poets to really establish the cultural and symbolic importance of the narcissus in the modern imagination. For with the exception of the rose and the lily, no flower blossoms more within the pages of English literature than the daffodil; Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats all wrote of the eternal joy that these flowers can bring.  

 

 

II. 

 

But surely everyone - not just William Wordsworth and the Welsh - loves to see daffodils flowering in the spring, don't they? 

 

At any rate, I love them: I love their bright golden colour and the manner in which a trumpet-shaped corona is surrounded by a six-pointed star formed by the tepals; and I love the fact they come up every year, regardless of external conditions, nodding in defiant affirmation of life.    

But my love of daffoldils is also a class thing; the common daffodil growing by the roadside and at the bottom of the garden has none of the ornamental superiority or cultivated pretension of the tulip (a bulb that is in my mind forever associated with the nouveaux riches in 17th-century Europe). 

 

 

III.

 

When I was a child - and neighbours still had front gardens, not driveways - I used to love stealing daffodils every Easter to give to my mother and I was touched that MLG should remember this and placed a single yellow flower in my mother's coffin prior to her funeral; she would have liked that [3]. 

 

And, of course, even without the personal context, such a gesture would have been entirely appropriate. For whilst daffodils often symbolise rebirth and resurrection, so too are they closely associated with death ...

 

The ancient Egyptians, for example, used to make decorative use of narcissi in their tombs, whilst the ancient Greeks considered these flowers sacred to both Persephone and Hades. Indeed, the former was said to be picking daffodils when she was abducted by the latter and taken to the Underworld.

 

The fact is, like many beautiful-looking things, daffodils are highly toxic, containing as they do the alkaloid poison lycorine - mostly in the bulb, but also in the stem and leaves - and if you ingest enough lycorine then death will follow a series of very unpleasant symptoms including acute abdominal pains, vomiting, diarrhea, trembling, convulsions and paralysis.  

 

So do make sure, dear reader, that you know your onions and never confuse these with daffodil bulbs ... 

    

 

Notes

 

[1] According to Greek myth, the beautiful-looking young man of this name - Νάρκισσος - rejected the romantic advances of others, preferring instead to gaze fixedly at his own reflection in a pool of water. After his death, it is said that a flower sprouted in the spot at which he spent his life sitting. 

      Interestingly, although the exact origin of the name is unknown, it is often linked etymologically to the Greek term from which we derive the English word narcotic (Narcissus was essentially intoxicated by his own beauty). 

      As for the word daffodil, this seems to be a corruption of asphodel, a flowering bulb to which the former is often compared.

 

[2] In 2006, the Royal Horticultural Society's International Daffodil Register and Classified List identified 87 species. But according to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families produced in 2014, there are only 52 species (along with at least 60 hybrids). Whatever the correct figure might be, the fact is that many wild species have already become extinct and many others are increasingly under threat due to over-collection and the destruction of natural habitats.

 

[3] When my mother died last month, aged 96, she had been living with dementia for almost a decade and it might be noted in relation to our topic here that daffodils produce a number of alkaloids that have been used in traditional forms of healing and one of which - gelantamine - is exploited in the production of a modern medicinal drug used to treat cognitive decline in those with Alzheimer's.     

 

 

This post is for Maria.