These canvases were initiated by a three month travel award to Italy sponsored by the Fergusson Art Gallery and Perth Museum. During this period Wilson took over 400 slides many of which were of church interiors and became interested in the body/spirit relationship central to the catholic faith. The images for these canvases were chosen because they seemed to mediate between an outer and inner world occupying a limbo state, a conflict between the desire to preserve and escape the material self. Historically images of the body whether in portraits or memorials can be seen as an attempt to extend mortality - the ornamentation of clothes, jewellery, fabric a preservation and expression of self. The canvases combine photography, fabric and pearls