Modern Religious Art

I've been corresponding recently with Christopher Clack who started the Modern Religious Art website just over a year ago. The site has had over 22,000 visitors over that time so has rightly attracted a good deal of notice.

Christopher writes that the motivation for the site was driven by his own work and interest in 'religious art' and because he believes "religious consciousness is nothing other then the indication of the new creative attitude of man towards the world" (to quote Tolstoy). He writes:

"I think that any new religious consciousness will be expressed through the arts, the problem being we may not yet know what it will be like or look like, it may not even at the moment be recognized as religion or religious, so I wanted to show examples of work that might (or might not) be part of this development. if that makes sense."

By religion he means matters of ultimate concern: "Religion means being ultimately concerned, asking the question of "to be or not to be" with respect to the meaning of one’s existence, and having symbols in which this question is answered. This is the largest and most basic concept of religion. And the whole development, not only of modern art but also of existentialism in all its realms -- and that means of the culture of the twentieth century -- is only possible if we understand that this is fundamentally what religion means: being ultimately concerned about one’s own being, about one’s self and one’s world, about its meaning and its estrangement and its finitude." Paul Tillich, Existentialist Aspects of Modern Art 

"Religion, like Art," he suggests, "is not about propounding doctrines, it’s not about what’s lawful or unlawful but about playfulness and creativity. Making art reconciles conflicting forces within us. The 'Religious' is found in the least expected places."
 
As such Modern Religious Art displays and encourages and the work of contemporary artists who are in some way motivated by or engaged with the religious. The site is not prescriptive of any particular belief system, it may contain contributions from artists who follow a particular faith but also artists of no faith or creed, and there will be those who consider themselves atheists, religious humanists, humanists, or agnostic. As the site is fairly new, Christopher has been searching out artists himself but he hopes more artists will start to find the site and he will start to find artists for the site that way.
 
Currently there are 11 artists featured on the site, including Christopher himself, and their work includes digital art, film, installation, painting, photography and sculpture. I particularly appreciated Tony O'Connell's photographs of everyday people as saints and Kate Pickering's performance and text based works which make "use of the language of religion to both examine and undo art world norms and assumptions."    

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