When Rodolfo Agrella was commissioned to design a portrait of Madre Carmen, the first Venezuelan saint canonized by Pope Leo XIV, he wanted to capture her blatant, sassy, and bold energy. The result came out as a Pop Art-infused portrait of the nun, created using artificial intelligence. 

Agrella, alongside his eponymous design brand RADS, generated some 780 images of Madre Carmen as she might have appeared. Based in New York, the Venezuelan artist undertook extensive research into the nun who bravely paved her way through Venezuela’s male-dominated politics and church. The process involved combing through a large portrait archive of early images and handwritten notebooks documenting her daily reflections.

Folding Agrella’s signature interplay of eclectic color and clean composition into Madre Carmen’s enduring image as an energetic holy figure, the portrait reimagines her iconography through a contemporary design lens. Elsewhere, Agrella conceived sleek steel reliquaries and a 3D-printed stone bust. The former was presented during the canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, last October.

Now, the design studio is looking ahead to shaping the oratory that will house Madre Carmen’s relics in Caracas.