World-renowned Los Angeles liturgical artist Isabel Piczek earned accolades for "opening new doors of research" at the Dallas International Shroud of Turin Conference held at the Adolphus Hotel Sept. 8-11. The landmark event drew 160 scientists, artists and physicians from around the world sharing the latest research on the shroud, believed by many to portray a full-length image of the crucified Christ.

Using a statue she created as a visual aid measuring one-third the actual size of the man depicted on the shroud, Piczek presented her explanation of the image's "Concealed Bas-Relief Effect." She theorizes the image of the shroud was transported onto a straight and taut linen above and below the man's hovering body.

"One of the puzzling mysteries of the shroud is that the image transported to an absolutely straight, taut surface is not flat. It is semi-three-dimensional, very much the same as a bas-relief is in art," explained Piczek. "In art, the bas-relief image always curves out of a straight background that radically eliminates the rest of the space behind the bas-relief."

Refuting theories that the figure on the shroud was painted, Piczek declared that the image's strong foreshortening of the body, combined with the lack of a continuous paint medium film on the cloth's surface, are "decisive arguments" that the shroud is not a painting. According to Piczek, the foreshortening of the legs, reflecting the reclined figure's elevated knees, excludes the possibility of a contact image of any kind. "An unknown system obeying laws different from optics created the image with strangely similar visual results," declared Piczek.

She came to this theory "at the cost of my whole brain" only one month ago during the creation of the shroud statue. "A heretofore unknown interface acted as an event horizon," explained Piczek. "The straight, taut linen of the shroud simply was forced to parallel the shape of this powerful interface. The projection, an action at a distance, happens from the surface and limit of this, taking with itself the bas-relief image of the upper and, separately, the underside of the body."

Piczek, who holds degrees in art and particle physics, thinks this new theory of how the image appeared warrants greater investigation of the non-image area of the shroud. Such research could yield scientific clues to the "unknown information field" which caused the projection, according to the shroud expert. A devout Catholic as well as a theoretical physicist, Piczek believes the image occurred at the moment of Christ's resurrection.

"The image of the shroud and its riddle cannot be solved through the science of the past," said Piczek. Concurring with French physicist and shroud researcher, Dr. William Wolkowski, Piczek believes that transdisciplinary study of the shroud will give birth to a new scientific age. "The shroud shows the future of science," declared Piczek.

She called the conference a "landmark event" due to the presence of Turin officials who fielded questions about the shroud, last displayed in public in 2000. Msgr. Giuseppe Ghiberti, adviser and spokesman for the papal custodian of the shroud in Turin, Italy, led the Turin delegation and delivered the keynote address.

According to Piczek, the Turin officials dispelled rumors about the shroud, including whether or not the shroud has been vacuumed. "The old thought that the shroud has been vacuumed is not true. The dirt on the cloth is historic," said Piczek, a founding board member of the Dallas-based American Shroud of Turin Association for Research. AMSTAR co-sponsored the event along with CENTRO, a 400-year-old shroud organization based in Turin, and the 50-year-old Holy Shroud Guild based in Esopus, New York.

During the conference, botany expert, Dr. Alan Whanger, indicated that pollen and flowers on the shroud reveal plants native to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. Other conference presenters discussed their analysis of the shroud's human bloodstains as well as biblical references to the shroud and an explanation of the cloth's "lost years" before it resurfaced in France in the 13th century.

Next year, an international shroud conference will be held in Los Angeles. Dr. August Accetta, founder of The Southern California Shroud Center in Huntington Beach will be among the local organizers for the 2006 event. (For further information on shroud events, log on to www.shroud.com.)