The Pilgrim Project features artists across different practices – art, music, writing, poetry, film, cultural groups and more – that bring back storytelling. It is a network of artists concerned with the expression of the search for the sacred and engagement of the human experience and builds connections across different audiences and demographics.
Michael Galovic engages himself in a few parallel directions: traditional icons, contemporary religious and non religious art. He keeps revisiting the theme he graduated with: The Flight and Fall of Icarus as well as the Crucifixion theme, but has been particularly focused lately on building a body of work on Uluru, the sacred Rock in the Northern Teritory of Australia. He says, ‘I am attracted to the powerful imagery in general. [It is] the highest possible drama of mankind ever seen and experienced… It talked to me. It resonated with me on that level immediately before I embraced any kind of faith.’
Patricia Varney adopts Christian themes in her works and utilises them in the contemporary practice of painting. Her focus is best identified by a layering of symbolism through the mystery of Christian paradoxes: the meeting of heaven and earth (divine geometry), the Annunciation (the possibility of Christ becoming man) and the illustrative expressions of what it means to ‘see’.
Eleni Antoniou Holloway is heavily influenced by the material she uses – clay is not only a process of making, but is the conceptual foundation for her work. She explores the work of clay through its historical function and through the personal narratives, metaphors and Christian symbolism of the ancient material: creation, the desire to create, the imprint of the maker, transformational processes and the pouring and containment of meaning.
Kristone Capistrano’s art practice is driven by an ongoing fascination with the person – moving beyond a story into connecting with the very essence of personhood. Working within the traditions of portraiture, he moves towards a questioning of presence and how it continues to linger, despite the departure of the person. His work functions in capturing, (re)presenting and (re)constructing the (corpo)real presence the composition of his work.
The Mandorla Art Award is a thematic religious art prize, attracting some of Australia’s finest artists since its 1985 inception. This achievement represents the dream of a small group of committed Christians, who call themselves “The Mandorla Centre of Inner Peace”. They were concerned by the overwhelmingly secular nature of contemporary art and so set about reviving an interest in and patronage of religious art. The Mandorla Art Award employs a thematic spiritual inspiration that changes with each exhibition. These inspirations are defined by quotations from the Bible and all participating artists are requested to interpret these in their own way.
The root of Art is compassion. At times we may forget beauty and neglect the dignity of each other’s story. The expression of our lives brings us into direct conversation with each other: it gives us the opportunity to stop and learn from and about one another and see ourselves in another’s eyes. These stories allow us to enter into our humanity and help us realise that we are not alone, but travel alongside each other in a pilgrimage that calls for transformation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eli Moore - What Good Am I?
No comments:
Post a Comment