Insects and Angels

Viewing Lila de Magalhaes’s exhibition “Spank the Sky,” at Lulu, I was reminded of a recently circulating meme comparing the angels that have come to populate the cultural imaginary—chubby blond cherubs and hot, haloed femmes—to those described in the Bible: animal-headed creatures covered in wings and eyes, full of God’s righteous wrath. The seraph depicted in The Merry Arsonist (all works 2020) would fit right in with the eldritch beings imagined in the Old