ArtWay

Beauty is not pasted over suffering but grows out of it—like the proverbial shoot from parched ground. Bruce Herman

Photographing Religious Practice

Photographing Religious Practice

by Jonathan Evens

There are many ways in which the return of religion, following its claimed ‘death rattle’ in the face of secularisation, has been noted within the arts. One such is the increasing prevalence of photographic series and books exploring aspects of religious practice.

Bohemia-born British-based photographer Markéta Luskačová was a pioneer in this regard. Her documentary series entitled ‘Pilgrims’, an intense study of the Christian rituals and devotions of Slovakian villagers, began as accompaniment to Luskačová’s theses on traditional forms of religion in Slovakia while at Charles University, Prague in 1967. Luskačová wanted to record the pilgrims’ way of life, because she thought that it would not survive for much longer. Similarly, the photographs of confessionals that S. Billie Mandle took over a ten-year period for her monograph ‘Reconciliation’ respond to the falling off in the practice of going to confession within Roman Catholic churches. She visited churches in small towns and large cities throughout the United States to photograph their confessionals and the images she captured show a sad neglect in spaces where the sadness of many lives is intended to find relief.

By contrast Alys Tomlinson’s prize winning ‘Ex-Voto’, a photographic series taken at the pilgrimage sites of Lourdes, Ballyvourney and Grabarka, reveals the enduring strength of pilgrimage as a human endeavour and the endurance of faith into the 21st century. Similarly, Niki Gorick’s ‘Faith in the City of London’ reveals that faith is currently alive and well in the City of London. Gorick’s endlessly fascinating book is the outcome of a project in which she documented the unique interaction between faith and commerce in the City of London. 

I first met Gorick when she photographed the inaugural Mayoral Thanksgiving Service held at St Stephen Walbrook in 2015. I heard then about her plans for the ‘Faith in the City of London’ project and she returned to photograph several other services and events held in my time at Walbrook. Some of those occasions are included within this book, St Stephen Walbrook and its events being eminently visual.

Her respect for and understanding of the activities she was viewing meant that Niki gained unique access to the more than 40 places of worship - Jewish, Dutch, Welsh, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and more - squeezed in between The Square Mile's towers of commerce. As a result she captured the day-to-day workings of these ancient buildings and discovered the vibrant, diverse spiritual life that is current and contemporary while stretching out across many faiths.

Photo: Niki Gorick

From family weddings and the rituals of daily services, through to dramatic investitures, magnificent harvest festivals, musical events of many varieties and celebrated, popular vicars, the photographs show an extraordinary range of spiritual goings-on and charismatic personalities. Her images provide real insight into a side of London's Square Mile not dominated by money-making, where City workers are trying to connect to life's deeper meanings and where religious traditions and questions of faith are still very much alive.

The people that the churches and others faiths seek to serve are often affluent and outwardly successful, but have the same needs and anxieties as everyone else – the same longings for love, acceptance, security, and fulfilment. A rich mix of events are utilised to connect with these longings ranging from traditional choral services amidst great architecture through to Bible studies in coffee shops, while also encompassing weddings, communions, Knights Templar investitures, huge wet fish displays, and Afghan music. A great diversity of traditions are sustained alongside experimentation and the formation of new traditions, such as the Mayoral Thanksgiving Service initiated at St Stephen Walbrook. Beautifully shot, framed and documented, Gorick’s images astutely reveal and celebrate a diverse and active side of this globally important financial district which is not dominated by money-making business but, instead, by the spiritual. 

That Tomlinson has found a style and audience by capturing the essence of faith in pilgrimage indicates the extent to which this spiritual practice and the devotion it evokes remains and remains powerful beneath the surface of our more secular age. Tomlinson began her project by booking herself on a 'pilgrim package' tour to Lourdes, ‘based on a curiosity and fascination to find out more about this Catholic pilgrimage site, known for its healing properties and spiritual power.’ She then expanded the project to include Ballyvourney and Grabarka, tying it in with her dissertation and MA in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage at SOAS, University of London.

The markers left behind at pilgrimage sites, the Ex-Voto of her title, became of particular interest. Tomlinson views these offerings, left by pilgrims as signs of gratitude and devotion placed anonymously and often hidden from view, as ’creating a tangible narrative between faith, person and the landscape.’ Small detailed still lives of Ex-Voto, formal portraiture of pilgrims and large format landscapes from the pilgrimage sites all feature in her series. Mike Trow, chair of judges for the Sony World Photography Awards 2018, sees the series as a sensitive illustration of the ‘idea of pilgrimage as a journey of discovery and sacrifice to a greater power’ through ‘quiet images, beautifully produced, with a calm, spiritual feel that is at odds with so much of our frenetic lives.’

Photographing from the perspective of the penitent, Mandle has created images that are more metaphorical than typological depicting the visible – and invisible – traces of people, communities, histories and dogmas. Her images speak to the beliefs that define these dark rooms and shape this intimate yet institutional ritual. Yet, the confessionals that Mandle photographed were pragmatic structures, often constructed with acoustic tiles, and more neglected than the churches themselves.

Photo: S. Billie Mandle

In the neglect of places and practices abandoned because of abuse, these seedy scruffy spaces that seem to share with us the shabby shame of sin, Mandle identifies the primary source of light and makes that the focus of her images. Light illumines and illuminates. In some images the light reveals the extent to which these spaces are rundown and gone to seed neglected. In others, the light irradiates the entire space transforming, changing, beautifying.

We look and look again because these images capture paradox. In Mandle’s images light reveals and irradiates these boxes which contain both abuse and absolution. The paradox they capture is the human paradox. These images examine us and our institutions. They interrogate us, posing questions about the depth of our confession and the illumination of our lives. Mandle’s confessionals are metaphorical spaces suggesting the complexities of faith and forgiveness in the 21st century.

Photo: S. Billie Mandle

As another acclaimed photographer of human habitats, interior spaces and urban environments Robert Polidori’s images, like those of Mandle, reflect on notions of memory and history embedded within architecture. The invitation for Polidori to photograph the restored frescoed interiors in the 15th Century San Marco Convent, as well as the building itself was inspired precisely because he believes that rooms act as vessels of memory.

Polidori visited the Convento di San Marco several times over the course of 2010 to capture the connection between the calm interior spaces of the monk’s cells and the spiritual charge of Fra Angelico’s striking masterworks, designed to augment meditation and prayer. His highly detailed, large-format colour photographs are created with long exposures and using natural light. Through their detailed command of colour, texture, light and shade, these images invoke stillness and contemplation in both the past and the present.

Tomlinson and Mandle also capture a solitary stillness and calm beauty in the faith-filled spaces and the faithful people or scenes they document. By the attention paid to their subjects their images share the same spiritual sense of contemplative stillness and silence that they first saw in the traces of those have used Mandle’s confessionals and also in Tomlinson’s pilgrims, their offerings, and the landscapes in which these are left.

Gorick says that her contact with religion had been limited and acknowledges that she had no idea at the beginning of the project of the depth and scope of the world of worship she would uncover. As a British fine art photographer specialising in images of London and Londoners for over 20 years, Gorick wonders in the Preface to the book how she had been missing all this before beginning the project. The Church itself, no doubt, has a part to play in that situation although, as Edward Lucie-Smith astutely notes in the book’s introduction, ‘the Christian faith in its Protestant form has been constantly evolving since the epoch of Wren and Hawksmoor’ and in religious, as well as purely financial terms, the City of London remains ‘a place where things begin.’ 

Photo: Niki Gorick

The combination of the timeless and contemporary is perfectly captured by the book’s iconic cover image showing clergy from the Two Cities on their mobile phones while waiting, in choir dress, to process into the Temple Church. It is this ability to straddle two worlds simultaneously which has led to the recent finding that, in lockdown, 1 in 4 of the population sampled an online service. Gorick’s discoveries provided her with a completely different perspective on the City of London and her hope now is that her photographs will inspire others to push open church doors and explore their spiritual nuances.

Similarly with the work of Mandle, Polidori and Tomlinson, where the beauty of their photographs, encourages us to go beyond their images by entering the history, tradition and reality of peaceful prayerfulness to which they connect.

*******

Jonathan Evens is Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, UK. Through HeartEdge, a network of churches, he encourages congregations to engage with culture, compassion and commerce. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. He writes regularly on the arts for a range of publications and blogs at https://joninbetween.blogspot.com.


More:

28 February 2024 / Book review Abundantly More
Book review by Nigel Halliday
 
Jeremy S. Begbie: ABUNDANTLY MORE: The theological promise of the arts in a reductionist world
Read more...


01 February 2024 / James Tughan: CONTACT
BOOK REVIEW
 
In this book James Tughan asks us to consider the idea that Jesus was first an artist before He was anything else.
Read more...


13 October 2023 / David Miller Interview

“Form welcomes the formless home”

Jonathan Evens interviews David Miller on his work and the “interrelation, symbiosis and overlap” between writing and visual art

Read more...


07 August 2023 / Ethnoarts Scripture Engagement

by Scott Rayl

Ethnoarts are artistic ‘languages’ that are unique to a particular community. They can help strengthen cultural and Christian identity.

Read more...


12 June 2023 / Georges Rouault and André Girard

by Jonathan Evens

Rouault and Girard: Crucifixion and Resurrection, Penitence and Life Anew

Read more...


28 April 2023 / Josh Tiessen: Vanitas + Viriditas

28 April - 26 May, New York gallery Rehs Contemporary will present Josh Tiessen: Vanitas and Viriditas.

Read more...


10 April 2023 / Images for God the Father

by Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker 

How can we ever comprehend God the Father with our small human intellects? How can we ever get to know Him and learn to live with Him?

Read more...


16 February 2023 / Ervin Bossanyi: A vision for unity and harmony

by Jonathan Evens

Bossanyi joined the large number of émigré artists arriving in Britain after WW II, many of whom were Jewish and explored spirituality within their work.

Read more...


06 January 2023 / The Creative Process

by Colin Black

Creative journeys are full of mishaps, accidents, and wrong turnings.

Read more...


01 December 2022 / ArtWay newsletter 2022

Artway will be continued by the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology from the beginning of 2024.

Read more...


20 October 2022 / Kuyper, the Aesthetic Sphere, and Art

After three centuries of silence about art in Reformed theological circles in the Netherlands, suddenly there was Abraham Kuyper, whose great merit it was that he once again drew attention to art.

Read more...


06 September 2022 / On the Street: The work of JR

by Betty Spackman

Through the project in Tehachapi JR wanted to "give voice to prisoners" and humanize their environment. 

Read more...


04 August 2022 / Joseph Beuys: A Spiritual German Artist

Is there a thread that connects the multifaceted work of this artist? My hypothesis is that Beuys’ spirituality is what drives his diverse work. 

Read more...


01 June 2022 / Interview with Belinda Scarlett

BELINDA SCARLETT, theatre costume and set designer and ecclesiastical textile artist

Interview by JONATHAN EVENS

Read more...


21 April 2022 / Betty Spackman: A Creature Chronicle

When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars that you have made, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them… Psalm 8

Read more...


08 April 2022 / Historical Models for Crosses and Crucifixes Today

All crosses and crucifixes symbolise joy and salvation. But formally there are two different types: the victorious and the suffering crucifix. 

Read more...


16 March 2022 / Three artworks by Walter Hayn

by Gert Swart

These three artworks must have turned Walter Hayn inside out, being so powerfully revealing.

Read more...


22 February 2022 / Abstract Expressionism

by Nigel Halliday

It is worth the while to remember the deep seriousness of these artists – even if their suggested answers can look sadly thin.

Read more...


07 January 2022 / Artist duo Gardner & Gardner

by Elizabeth Kwant

During COP26 artist duo Gardner & Gardner installed their work I will learn to sit with you and I will learn to listen in Glasgow Cathedral.

Read more...


09 December 2021 / ArtWay Newsletter and List of Books 2021

Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker intends to phase out her participation in the day to day oversight of the ArtWay website over the course of the coming new year.

Read more...


03 November 2021 / The Seven Works of Mercy in Art

by Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker

This overview will show that these artworks from different ages mirror the theological ideas and the charitable works of their times.

Read more...


06 October 2021 / Disciplining our eyes with holy images

by Victoria Emily Jones

Images tend to work a subtle magic on us, especially after years of constant exposure.

Read more...


24 August 2021 / On the Gifts of Street Art

by Jason Goroncy

These works represent an act of reclaiming public space for citizens rather than merely consumers.

Read more...


27 July 2021 / Russia’s 1st Biennale of Christ-centered Art

An opportunity of dialogue between the church and contemporary art

by Viktor Barashkov

Read more...


30 June 2021 / Jacques and Raïssa Maritain among the Artists

by David Lyle Jeffrey

About the influence of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain on Rouault, Chagall and Arcabas.

Read more...


13 May 2021 / GOD IS...

Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Exhibition: “God Is . . .”

by Victoria Emily Jones

Read more...


23 March 2021 / Constanza López Schlichting: Via Crucis

Perhaps what may be different from other Stations of the Cross is that it responds to a totally free expression and each station is a painting in itself. 

Read more...


10 February 2021 / Gert Swart: Four Cruciforms

In a post-Christian era, contemporary Christian artists have to find new ways of evoking the power of the cross. 

Read more...


08 January 2021 / Reflecting on a Gauguin Masterpiece

by Alan Wilson

An artist's reflection on Impressionism, Cezanne, Van Gogh and especially Gauguin's Vision after the Sermon.

Read more...


11 December 2020 / ArtWay Newsletter 2020

What makes the ArtWay platform so special is its worldwide scope thanks to its multilingual character. There are ArtWay visitors in all countries on this planet. 

Read more...


27 October 2020 / Art Pilgrimage

A Research Project on Art Stations of the Cross

by Lieke Wijnia

Read more...


18 September 2020 / Interview with Peter Koenig

by Jonathan Evens

Koenig's practice demonstrates that the way to avoid blandness in religious art is immersion in Scripture.

Read more...


17 August 2020 / BOOK REVIEW BY HEINRICH BALZ

How Other Cultures See the Bible

Christian Weber, Wie andere Kulturen die Bibel sehen. Ein Praxisbuch mit 70 Kunstwerken aus 33 Ländern.

Read more...


17 July 2020 / The Calling Window by Sophie Hacker

by Jonathan Evens  

In 2018 British artist Sophie Hacker was approached to design a window for Romsey Abbey to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Florence Nightingale.

Read more...


12 June 2020 / A little leaven leavens the whole lump

From South Africa

Ydi Carstens reports on the group show ‘Unleavened’ which was opened in Stellenbosch shortly before the Covid-19 lock-down. 

Read more...


14 May 2020 / Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals

Republished: 

Hans Rookmaaker, Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals. The Origins and Spirituality of Black Music in the United States. 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evens

Read more...


17 April 2020 / Andy Warhol: Catholicism, Work, Faith And Legacy

by Jonathan Evens 

While Warhol’s engagement with faith was complex it touched something which was fundamental, not superficial.

Read more...


25 March 2020 / Sacred Geometry in Christian Art

by Sophie Hacker

This blog unravels aspects of sacred geometry and how it has inspired art and architecture for millennia. 

Read more...


22 February 2020 / Between East and West

By Kaori Homma

Being in this limbo between day and night makes me question, “Where does the east end and the west start?”

Read more...


15 February 2020 / Imagination at Play

by Marianne Lettieri

To deny ourselves time to laugh, be with family and friends, and fuel our passions, we get caught in what Cameron calls the “treadmill of virtuous production.”

Read more...


07 December 2019 / ArtWay Newsletter 2019

An update by our editor-in-chief 
and
the ArtWay List of Books 2019

Read more...


16 November 2019 / Scottish Miracles and Parables Exhibition

Alan Wilson: "Can there be a renewal of Christian tradition in Scottish art, where ambitious artists create from a heartfelt faith, committed to their Lord and saviour as well as their craft?"

Read more...


23 September 2019 / Dal Schindell Tribute

While Dal’s ads and sense of humour became the stuff of legends, it was his influence on the arts at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada that may be his biggest legacy. 

Read more...


04 September 2019 / The Aesthetics of John Calvin

Calvin stated that 'the faithful see sparks of God's glory, as it were, glittering in every created thing. The world was no doubt made, that it might be the theater of divine glory.'

Read more...


31 July 2019 / The Legend of the Artist

by Beat Rink

The image of the 'divine' artist becomes so dominant that artists take their orientation from it and lead their lives accordingly.

Read more...


02 July 2019 / Quotes by Tim Keller

Many “Christian art” productions are in reality just ways of pulling artists out of the world and into the Christian subculture.

Read more...


08 June 2019 / The Chaiya Art Awards

by Jonathan Evens

The Chaiya Art Awards 2018 proved hugely popular, with over 450 entries and more than 2,700 exhibition visitors.

Read more...


29 May 2019 / Art Stations of the Cross: Reflections

by Lieke Wynia

In its engagement with both Biblical and contemporary forms of suffering, the exhibition addressed complex topical issues without losing a sense of hope out of sight.

Read more...


03 May 2019 / Marianne Lettieri: Relics Reborn

Items that show the patina of time and reveal the wear and tear of human interaction are carriers of personal and collective history. 

Read more...


27 April 2019 / Franciscan and Dominican Arts of Devotion

by John Skillen 

This manner of prayer stirs up devotion, the soul stirring the body, and the body stirring the soul.

Read more...


13 March 2019 / Makoto Fujimura and the Culture Care Movement

by Victoria Emily Jones

Culture care is a generative approach to culture that brings bouquets of flowers into a culture bereft of beauty.

Read more...


08 January 2019 / Building a Portfolio of People

by Marianne Lettieri

Besides hard work in the studio, networking may be the single most important skill for a sustainable art practice.

Read more...


01 December 2018 / ArtWay Newsletter December 2018

ArtWay has Special Plans for 2019!

After London, Washington D.C. and New York the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is now the anticipated location for a prominent art exhibition with the title Art Stations of the Cross.

Read more...


11 October 2018 / The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe

Book Review by Jonathan Evens

The significance and spirituality of the work is made clear in ways which counteract the stereotype of mass production of a static style.

Read more...


13 September 2018 / A Visit to the Studio of Georges Rouault

by Jim Alimena

Everything we saw and learned reinforced my picture of a great man of faith and a great artist. 

Read more...


09 August 2018 / With Opened Eyes: Representational Art

by Ydi Coetsee

How do we respond to the ‘lost innocence’ of representational art? 

Read more...


13 July 2018 / True Spirituality in the Arts

by Edith Reitsema

Living in Christ should lead us away from living with a segregated view of life, having a sacred-secular split. 

Read more...


17 May 2018 / Beholding Christ in African American Art

Book review by Victoria Emily Jones

One of the hallmarks of Beholding Christ is the diversity of styles, media, and denominational affiliations represented.

Read more...


23 April 2018 / Short Introduction to Hans Rookmaaker

by Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker

On the occasion of the establishment of the Rookmaaker Jazz Scholarship at Covenant College, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 12 March 2018

Read more...


04 April 2018 / International Art Residency in India

Art for Change, a New Delhi based arts organization with a vision to see art shape society with beauty and truth, will be running its 6th annual International Artist Residency in November 2018.

Read more...


15 March 2018 / The Stations of the Cross at Blackburn Cathedral

by Penny Warden  

Perhaps the central challenge for the artist in imaging the body of Christ is the problem of representing the dual natures of the doctrine of the incarnation.

Read more...


23 February 2018 / Between the Shadow and the Light

By Rachel Hostetter Smith

In June 2013 a group of twenty North American and African artists from six African countries met for two weeks of intensive engagement with South Africa.

Read more...


30 January 2018 / Sacred Geometry in Christian Art

by Sophie Hacker

This blog unravels aspects of sacred geometry and how it has inspired art and architecture for millennia. 

Read more...


01 January 2018 / Jonathan Evens writes about Central Saint Martins

Why would Central Saint Martins, a world-famous arts and design college and part of University of the Arts London, choose to show work by its graduates in a church?

Read more...


06 December 2017 / ArtWay Newsletter December, 2017

ArtWay's Chairman Wim Eikelboom: "The visual arts cultivate a fresh and renewed view of deeply entrenched values. That is why ArtWay is happy to provide an online platform for art old and new."

Read more...


14 November 2017 / The Moral Imagination: Art and Peacebuilding

In the context of conflict transformation the key purpose of creative expression is to provide a venue for people to tell their stories, and for their stories to be heard.

Read more...


24 October 2017 / Bruce Herman: Ut pictura poesis?

For the last couple hundred of years the arts have largely been in "experimentation mode"—moving away from the humble business of craft and service toward ideas, issues, and theory.

Read more...


04 October 2017 / David Jeffrey: Art and Understanding Scripture

The purpose of In the Beauty of Holiness: Art and the Bible in Western Culture is to help deepen the reader’s understanding of the magnificence of the Bible as a source for European art.

Read more...


08 September 2017 / David Taylor: The Aesthetics of John Calvin

Calvin stated that 'the faithful see sparks of God's glory, as it were, glittering in every created thing. The world was no doubt made, that it might be the theater of divine glory.'

Read more...


23 August 2017 / ​Reconstructed by Anikó Ouweneel

A much talked-about exposition in the NoordBrabants Museum in The Netherlands showed works by modern and contemporary Dutch artists inspired by traditional Catholic statues of Christ and the saints. 

Read more...


04 July 2017 / Pilgrimage to Venice – The Venice Biennale 2017

When I start to look at the art works, I notice a strange rift between this pleasant environment and the angst and political engagement present in the works of the artists. 

Read more...


24 June 2017 / Collecting as a Calling

After many years of compiling a collection of religious art, I have come to realize that collecting is a calling. I feel strongly that our collection has real value and that it is a valuable ministry. 

Read more...


02 June 2017 / I Believe in Contemporary Art

By Alastair Gordon

In recent years there has been a growing interest in questions of religion in contemporary art. Is it just a passing fad or signs of renewed faith in art? 

Read more...


04 April 2017 / Stations of the Cross - Washington, DC 2017

by Aaron Rosen

We realized that the Stations needed to speak to the acute anxiety facing so many minorities in today’s America and beyond. 

Read more...


07 March 2017 / Socially Engaged Art

A discussion starter by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Growing dissatisfaction with an out-of-touch, elite and market driven art world has led artists to turn to socially engaged art. 

Read more...


01 February 2017 / Theodore Prescott: Inside Sagrada Familia

The columns resemble the trunks of trees. Gaudi conceived of the whole interior as a forest, where the nave ceiling would invoke the image of an arboreal canopy.

Read more...


03 January 2017 / Steve Scott tells about his trips to Bali

In the Balinese shadow play the puppet master pulls from a repertoire of traditional tales and retells them with an emphasis on contemporary moral and spiritual lessons. 

Read more...


09 December 2016 / Newsletter ArtWay December 2016

Like an imitation of a good thing past, these days of darkness surely will not last. Jesus was here and he is coming again, to lead us to the festival of friends.

Read more...


01 November 2016 / LAbri for Beginners

What is the role of the Christian artist? Is it not to ‘re-transcendentalise’ the transcendent, to discern what is good in culture, and to subvert what is not with a prophetic voice?

Read more...


30 September 2016 / Book Review by Jonathan Evens

Jonathan Koestlé-Cate, Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace - Ecclesiastical Encounters with Contemporary Art, Routledge, 2016.

Read more...


01 September 2016 / Review: Modern art and the life of a culture

The authors say they want to help the Christian community recognize the issues raised in modern art and to do so in ways that are charitable and irenic. But I did not find them so. Their representation of Rookmaaker seems uncharitable and at times even misleading. 

Read more...


29 July 2016 / Victoria Emily Jones on Disciplining our Eyes

There’s nothing inherently wrong with images—creating or consuming. In fact, we need them. But we also need to beware of the propensity they have to plant themselves firmly in our minds. 

Read more...


30 June 2016 / Aniko Ouweneel on What is Christian Art?

Pekka Hannula challenges the spectator to search for the source of the breath we breathe, the source of what makes life worth living, the source of our longing for the victory of redemptive harmony.

Read more...


09 June 2016 / Theodore Prescott: The Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia is a visual encyclopedia of Christian narrative and Catholic doctrine as Gaudi sought to embody the faith through images, symbols, and expressive forms.

Read more...


19 May 2016 / Edward Knippers: Do Clothes make the Man?

Since the body is the one common denominator for all of humankind, why do we fear to uncover it? Why is public nudity a shock or even a personal affront?

Read more...


27 April 2016 / Alexandra Harper: Culture Care

Culture Care is an invitation to create space within the local church to invest our talents, time and tithes in works that lean into the Kingdom of God as creative agents of shalom. 

Read more...


06 April 2016 / Jonathan Evens on Contemporary Commissions

The issue of commissioning secular artists versus artists of faith represents false division and unnecessary debate. The reality is that both have resulted in successes and failures.

Read more...


12 March 2016 / Betty Spackman: Creativity and Depression

When our whole being is wired to fly outside the box, life can become a very big challenge. To carve oneself into a square peg for the square holes of society, when you are a round peg, is painful to say the least.

Read more...


24 February 2016 / Jim Watkins: Augustine and the Senses

Augustine is not saying that sensual pleasure is bad, but that it is a mixed good. As his Confessions so clearly show, Augustine is painfully aware of how easily he can take something good and turn it into something bad. 

Read more...


11 February 2016 / H.R. Rookmaaker: Does Art Need Justification?

Art is not a religion, nor an activity relegated to a chosen few, nor a mere worldly, superfluous affair. None of these views of art does justice to the creativity with which God has endowed man.

Read more...


26 January 2016 / Ned Bustard: The Bible is Not Safe

Revealed is intended to provoke surprise, even shock. It shows that the Bible is a book about ordinary people, who are not only spiritual beings, but also greedy, needy, hateful, hopeful, selfish, and sexual.

Read more...


14 January 2016 / Painting by Nanias Maira from Papua New Guinea

In 2011 Wycliffe missionary Peter Brook commissioned artist Nanias Maira, who belongs to the Kwoma people group of northwestern Papua New Guinea, to paint Bible stories in the traditional style for which he is locally known. 

Read more...