Collection: Seven Deadly Sins
“We are punished by our sins, not for them.” — H. L. Mencken
In The Seven Deadly Sins, female photographer Jamie Nelson reinterprets the seven cardinal vices—pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth—through a neon-fueled, female gaze. The series fuses pop surrealism and theological symbolism, situating the ancient moral code within a contemporary landscape of excess and desire.
Using ultraviolet light, Nelson acts as both artist and forensic investigator, uncovering the glowing traces of sin written across flesh. Each vice is embodied in an intoxicating tableau: Gluttony lies amid radiant cannabis leaves, Greed clutches wads of money against jeweled skin, and Wrath presses a blade to her heart. Pride peers into a mirror of disembodied perfection, while Sloth languishes in narcotic stillness. Nelson’s ultraviolet palette—acid pinks, electric blues, and phosphorescent greens—renders each scene both forensic and hallucinatory, exposing not punishment, but pleasure.
Through her use of high-tech illumination, Nelson collapses the sacred and the profane—the nightclub and the cathedral—revealing how sin endures, simply updated in form. By merging biblical allegory with the visual codes of nightlife, social media, and beauty culture. In Nelson’s world, indulgence becomes both spectacle and self-destruction—a radiant reminder that in the age of dopamine, we are punished by our sins, not for them.
