A recent conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, “Between Two Worlds”, saw 400 Christian artists, theorists, curators, collectors and pastors gather for discussion on contemporary art and religion. Christians In the Visual Arts (CIVA), an international network based in Wenham, Massachusetts, hosts biennial conferences for members and associates. Keen to participate and make connections, I also wanted to report on the arts program at South Sydney Uniting Church, which includes dedicated space and time for art exhibitions and classes.
Delegates referred to churches hosting art exhibitions, as well as preachers and liturgists making use of visual material. A significant number of artists expressed gratitude to CIVA for support and encouragement over the years (CIVA was established in 1980). The example, however, of a church gallery alongside art classes – workshops in which art is made by local artists, including an artist in residence – stood out as something rare and sacramental.
I shared four conversations with four South Sydney artists on four sacramental themes drawn from the work of a theologian called Louis-Marie Chauvet. The four themes – creativity, justice, respect and witness – comprise a perforated frame within which to consider the nature and purpose of art in the context of a worshiping community.
Not just a means of mediating between art and religion, artistic practice may be a religious vocation, mediating between the “real” and the meaningful “world” of human life (symbols, language, history, culture). Artists may see themselves engaged in prayer, their practice a kind of meditation.
A church gallery can symbolise a faithful openness to creation, different cultures and diverse neighbours. As a space for expressions of wonder and praise, bewilderment and lament, it can serve as a window on a world of conflict and struggle. It can serve as a window on worlds other than Christian, Western or monotheistic.
Like the cross or mystical cloud, an exhibition in a church gallery can enact a dis-position and dispossession (Stanislas Breton), a suspending of belief and judgement (Edmund Husserl) in the name of a “learned ignorance” (Nicholas of Cusa) or creative unknowing. It can also be stimulating and enjoyable.
One of my favourite quotations from Chauvet stresses that theology, like faith more broadly, is a practice. Theology is not about purifying our concepts “in order to express God” but rather “the use that we make of these concepts … the attitude, idolatrous or not, they elicit from us”. Theology, like faith, is an ethical practice.
I have many favourite quotes from the four artists I interviewed. Here are just a few.
Jovana Terzic on creativity: “I had my first vision, as I call it, by a lake called Lake Nakuru in Kenya. The lake is pink because the flamingoes are there eating the little creatures in the water, and then if you look, you stand and it’s sand and then the other side it’s savanna, and the savanna is beautiful … It was like, this is Paradise, this is what they are talking about, we are in Paradise … The vision lies behind my whole philosophy and my personal mythology that I express … I feel as though I’m serving in some way …”
Jovana Terzic on justice: “People should look at art as some kind of weapon for resistance. That’s how you resist. And also, by creating, you feel powerful. When you feel powerful, you are stronger. That’s the way it should be – something good that is used as empowerment. The essential fight for what is right for the soul.”
Catherine Skipper on respect: “The more clever you are in a medium, the more wicked you can be. In that sense, it’s easier to be destructive … a sort of pride, the pride of youth … I would like to think that something I’ve created is a reflection of the spiritual, a shared point between colour and the human soul. It should be used always with respect. You should be careful.”
Catherine Skipper on witness: “This remarkable amphibian [the axolotl] is currently listed as ‘critically endangered’ as its natural environment is threatened by global climate change. There is a newness to the image, a picture of our time, a concern for physical reality, but also an umbra almost of a sacred reality (Christ) in which humanity and creation are in harmony, the ‘not yet’ but the coming.”
Blak Douglas (aka Adam Hill) on creativity: “I really want to dig deep and challenge the concept of what warms most people’s hearts, and the big question is, well, I always address things from a colonial perspective … So, for me the challenge of creativity is to create an analytical abstract version of [a subject] … Well, I’ve heard it many a time, it’s not really something I’d hang on my dining room wall, you know. However, it’s making an astute comment on where we are as a society … So that excites me, that is my drive in creating a piece.”
Blak Douglas on justice: “For me, the positive side is this, that the high school students are studying me now, in curriculum, are choosing to study me. I know that I’ve gone full circle in what I do and can be quite content. To have a former high school student come up to you on Abercrombie Street and say, ‘Excuse me, are you Adam Hill? I studied your art in school’. Well, there’s nothing that warms your heart more than that.”
Alana Valentine on respect: “A lack of utilitarianism in all aspects of our life is a great thing to be reminded of, especially in the arts, because there’s a myth that you can actually track the usefulness of everything. I can’t tell whether a play I wrote 20 years ago influenced someone to become something or made them not become something. You can’t trace that.”
Alana Valentine on witness: “I don’t know if my art bears witness to both the joy of the ‘already’ and the distress of the ‘not yet’ as much as the mystery of the process. What I want to say about witness is witness to the continuing mystery of how the process works, and the sort of mysterious nature of that grace … I understand what Chauvet is saying, that there’s an incompleteness. That’s what I’m trying to say about justice. You actually can never solve it. There’s always going to be the poor, there’s always going to be injustice. What you can do is affirm the resurrection, the possibility of resuscitation and re-creation.”
