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The African Virgin is a part of the “Virgins” series from 2008, in which the artist made mosaics of 20 women who were murdered by their husbands in 2006.

The artist states:

The African Virgin is a reversion of the famous work “The Vitruvian Man” made by the genius Leonardo DaVinci. Here we see the notable differences made intentionally to subvert the established order. First, the woman’s figure – which replaces the man in DaVinci’s drawing – is dark skinned – she represents the first woman, Lucy, who originated from the African territory and she is not naked, but dressed in a floral dress. We do not see her palms, but the backs of her hands are marked with “stigmata” or golden marks. The woman’s head breaks free from the square parameters and her feet from the round parameter. The woman keeps her feet together, in that way her legs remain closed: she will not be a sexual object. Finally, due to the color of her flowers, we interpret that she is in mourning while the golden halo is attributed to an aura of divinity. […] Her inverted hands with “stigmata” evoke the crucifixion at the hands of men: it is the woman who is sacrificed daily, the one who will appear in the newspaper headline any day of any week. Her mourning is pathetic: the woman dies as a social individual; she wears out as a representation of mother earth; agonizes as a metaphor for life.

– Eddie Ferraioli (The Genesis of the Virgins, 2008).