Where to find the signs of God in our world? The Chaiya Art Awards winners exhibition features 50 visual artists all exploring the theme of God Is… and encouraging us to look beyond, to discern what cannot be seen and grasp what cannot be described.
The God is... exhibition is an invitation to enter a liminal space where life’s pain and pleasure dissolve, where questions and answers fade into shadow, where the indefinable lies, a treasure waiting to be found. Ann Clifford, who wrote the book accompanying the exhibition says, ‘The artists featured invite us to muse with them about their journey, laying before us a heartland of fullness. They reduce, simplify, purify and attempt to align themselves with that which is beyond complete expression.’
‘It is a part of the human condition to question our existence; to wonder, to imagine and to try to make sense of the world we inhabit, how we came to be here and what will happen to us when we die.’ ‘The sound of diverse voices filled with questions rumbles over the land like the gathering of an exquisite murmuration of starlings. The threads of God woven into ordinary everyday lives are seen in so many ways – kindness, respect for others, our visceral responses to nature and, oh, so much more. However many find answers, the questioning sound will never die.’
Lesley Sutton, the exhibition’s curator, reminds us that: ‘Art enables us to think and question not just with our minds, but also through our bodies, our senses. As viewers, our eyes meet the emotions of the artists, their colour palettes revealing personal narratives. Some speak of pain and suffering, questioning where God is when days are dark and He seems to have abandoned us. Others have used brightly coloured canvases of cerulean blue, gilded squares or intricately carved sculptures to invite us to delight in the beauty of the world we call home. Yet others have chosen to remind us of our responsibility as caretakers of the earth and sea and all its inhabitants.’
In the silence and stillness of contemplating art we unlock ourselves to fresh experiences, for which, perhaps, we have no language. Pondering God and the concept of His being is heady and surprising. Yet, if God is real, we should expect Him to reveal Himself. There are many places in which signs of God are revealed. For some it is found in the silence. For others, the natural world. For Moses, in the biblical story, it was a non-burning burning bush that caught his attention. What will capture our attention?
For the artist in this exhibition 'God is …’ a mystery explored through canvas and paper, photographs and video, others cloth and stitch; 3D metalwork and pottery; bronze and stone sculpture; glass and pipework; and a movement sensitive robot alongside an interactive sign with sonic sensors.
Here are three images that particularly spoke to me. Anne Smith fashioned from recycled fabrics, string, and threads a celebration of Brendan, a homeless man she knew. Although the homeless people she met weekly occupied little space in the world, she noticed the importance to them of their makeshift outfits. Her patchwork brings scraps and fragments of cloth together, and her sewn black line, depicting Brendan’s gentle face and pure eyes, is suffused and stitched with love. This recycled quilt reveals the face of God as surely as Veronica’s veil or the dream of St Martin. Anne says, Artists are alert to glimpses of unvarnished reality which can become moments of revelation …. In [Brendan’s] politeness, trust, his gentle face and pure eyes, I saw the face of God.’
Fiona Morley’s wire-sculptured face You are everything – the overall winning work - also links and unites in order to fashion a figure. Animals, insects, amphibians, and birds form an iconic ancestral face: an interconnected and evolving creation, culminating in an image of God. Fiona Morley has said: ’I belong to no particular religion, yet believe we are all part of something which could be named God. God is not separate from life. Through portraying the diversity of the animal kingdom in the face, I represent the consciousness and perception of our own lives, and interconnectedness with all other life – the closest explanation/experience of what God is.’
Jake Flood’s photograph Reflection is of Vesqua, a sculpture by William Pye which was among 70 contemporary sculptures installed in Gloucester Cathedral for Crucible 2 in 2014. Vesqua remained there until Easter 2015 when it was used as a font to baptise several people.
Water is the predominant feature of Vesqua, its surface reflecting and extending the surrounding architecture. Surface tension maintains a flat disc of apparently still water at a level that is perceptibly higher than the rim of its bronze container. A significant flow of water enters the vessel and as this rises turbulence disappears to give an effect of stillness, despite the fact that some 135 litres of water per minute are slipping down the throat of a square internal weir that draws water down to a reservoir below. In this way, two contrasting aspects of water are woven seamlessly together: stillness expressed in the reflecting surface, and the flow and movement though the square edged weir.
Flood has said that: ‘The reflections edging the font mirror the ancient stories expressed in the surrounding stained glass. The centre is empty, offering a space to reflect and connect with God. I don’t believe in any deity, but working with survivors of slavery, moments of reflection, silence and stillness have expanded to enable community, cooperation and the beginnings of new stories – maybe that is God.’
Flood’s image sets the square edged weir at the centre creating a space that is empty and dark. The apophatic tradition in Christianity maintains that the place of emptiness – both personally and through the renunciation of images – is the place of encounter with God. As several Psalms suggest darkness can be a covering for God and also our closest friend. Fringing the central space as reflections of the Cathedral’s stained glass which lie beyond the sculpture but which the water’s stillness enables us to glimpse. Although the centre of the image is empty and monochrome, Flood’s image shares with us the surrounding diversity of colour. We cannot fully see the stained glass or read its story but can see sufficient to appreciate its richness.
Stillness and turbulence are core to Pye’s sculpture and feature, too, in Flood’s reflection. Turbulence, in working with survivors of slavery. Stillness, in moments of reflection during art therapy that enables connection. Flood has created an image that is both apophatic and cataphatic and which reveals that God is absence and presence, stillness and disturbance, central and beyond. In these ways Flood’s image encourages us to look beyond, to discern what cannot be seen and grasp what cannot be described.
God is the politeness, trust, gentleness and purity found in Brendan. God is the diversity of the animal kingdom and the interconnections between humanity and creation in You are everything. God is affirmation and negative, the darkness at the centre and the colour that surrounds in Reflection. Tonight’s Word on the Edge (1 John 1.5, 3.18-20, 4.7-16) added that God is love and light and greater than our hearts.
John Donne, the poet-priest, said: ‘My God, my God … You are a figurative, a metaphorical God … a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages … to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories … and such things in your words … you are the Dove that flies.’ When God contains such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, we certainly do not understand all that God is or is not, yet, as with this exhibition, God asks us to set aside time, shut out all distractions, revive our senses, and explore, perhaps with these artworks selected as a map to our journey. If you are seeking hidden treasure, the promise is to seek and you will find.
Earlier we heard Anne Smith say that artists are alert to glimpses of unvarnished reality which become moments of revelation. As we reflect on this exhibition I want to challenge you to become artists by becoming alert to God in the people you meet, alert to the interconnections between ourselves and creation, and alert to images and places that open us up to the beyond. I wonder what are the ‘God is… images that you might create as you notice and attend to those signs of God around us? Whether you are able to join our listening groups after this service or not, I want to encourage you to take that idea away with you and make your own ‘God is…’ images in the weeks to come based on what you see around you. In the moments or people you notice, the realities to which you pay attention, we will come to see the face of God.
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