Jesse Mockrin, the artist with the clever name, is taking on the famous subject of Mary Magdalene from a fresh angle. It turns out that this iconic woman was smeared as a former prostitute by a pope many years after her death, in a case of mistaken identity conflating her with another Mary. And she’s been depicted by male painters as a sinful woman ever since! Jesse’s new paintings, which will be on display in New York, seek to question the truth about whose vanity was really displayed in these historical representations of women holding mirrors.

As a woman, Jesse recognizes the inherent difficulties of creative inheritance. Women are often expected to be muses or caretakers of male artists rather than artists themselves. But there’s an upside to being left out of the patrimony. If you aren’t expected to write the next great American novel or direct the next great Japanese film, you’re free to create something entirely different! And the truth is, women have always had to draw inspiration from their own lives and experiences, because the available models in art and literature simply don’t reflect their reality.

Even the legendary poet Lucille Clifton, who was black and female, didn’t have many precedents to follow. But she found inspiration in her own life and the lives of the women around her, and made a name for herself by writing from that perspective. Other women have aestheticized autobiography itself, like the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, who hid her identity altogether. Either way, paying homage to the women who came before them allows women artists to make a subtle feminist gesture on the level of form, rather than making an explicit feminist statement.

But things

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