Online exhibitions and visual meditations

Here's an update about the online exhibitions I have curated with the Ben Uri Gallery and the Visual Commentary on Scripture. These include visual meditations on the artworks included. I have also written visual meditations for ArtWay, so these are also included in this post.

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

I have also curated an online exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery which is entitled Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images. The exhibition includes a range of Biblical images from the Ben Uri Collection in order to explore migration themes through consideration of the images, the Bible passages which inspired them and the relationship between the two. This is because themes of identity and migration feature significantly in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and images from these Bibles are a substantive element of the Ben Uri Collection.

The combination of images and texts enables a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. The result is that significant synergies can be found between the ancient texts and current issues. In this way, stories and images which may, at first, appear to be describing or defining specific religious doctrines can be seen to take on a shared applicability by exploring or revealing the challenges and changes bound up in the age-old experience of migration.

The Gallery said: "We are delighted to present a new exhibition interpreting works from our collection titled Exodus and Exile. The survey has been curated by Revd Jonathan Evens who has a long-established parallel interest in art and faith and how they are mutually engaging. We are privileged to benefit from his scholarship and innate sensitivity and am sure you too will be inspired by his selection and commentary."

Alongside the exhibition is an essay Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art, an updated version of an article I originally wrote for Church Times looking at influential works by émigré Jewish artists that were under threat. The article mentions Ervin Bossanyi, Naomi Blake, Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, Hans Feibusch, and George Mayer-Marton, telling stories of the impact of migration on the work and reputations of these artists.

Following the launch of the exhibition, I wrote an article 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' for Seen and Unseen explaining how curating an exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery & Museum gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

ArtWay's visual meditations are devoted to one work of art, old or new, made by a Christian artist or not, from Europe, North-America or another part of the world. They advocate a thoughtful engagement with art and culture over against an uninformed rejection or uncritical embrace. While dealing with works of art, they have an eye for the form as well as the content. To them an important aspect of this content is formed by the spiritual dimension of a work, whether Christian, Buddhist, or postmodern. They especially look for voices of truth, hope and love in the art of the past and the present, whether or not by Christian hand.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Gwen John, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Alan Stewart, Jan Toorop, Andrew Vessey, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu. The index for all my contributions to ArtWay, including my Visual Meditations, can be viewed by clicking here.

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Magna Carta - Lord Of The Ages.

Visual Commentary on Scripture - 'Before the Deluge'

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

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The Fire Theft - Sinatra.

The kingdom of Christ the King

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

Jesus and Pilate
head-to-head
in a clash of cultures.
Pilate is
angular, aggressive, threatening
representing
the oppressive, controlling
Empire of dominating power,
with its strength in numbers
and weaponry,
which can crucify
but cannot
set free.
Jesus is
curves and crosses,
love and sacrifice,
representing
the kingdom of God;
a kingdom of love,
service and self-sacrifice
birthing men and women
into the freedom
to love one another.

The way of compassion
or the way of domination;
the way of self-sacrifice
or the way of self;
the way of powerlessness
or the way of power;
the way of serving
or the way of grasping;
the kingdom of God
or the empires of Man.

Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, in ‘Water into Wine’ his commentary on John’s Gospel, notes the way in which this Gospel consistently speaks about there being two different levels or orders to reality. What he means by this are different patterns of society, each with a different centre or ruling power. He gives as an example, the difference between a fascist order and a democratic order: “In the fascist order there is a dictator, and round him subservient people who raise their hands in salute, and are thrown into concentration camps if they disobey. In the democratic order … there is an elected government, and round it persons who are interdependent, who share initiatives and ideas.”

So, what are the two orders that he sees described in John’s Gospel? In the first, “the ruling principle is the dictator ME, my ego-centric ego, and the pattern of society is people competing with, manipulating and trying to control each other.” In the second, “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

When Jesus says that his kingdom is not from here (John 18. 33-37), in this world, he means that it is not a kingdom of the ego dictated by the needs and insecurities of the one in power, instead his kingdom, which comes from elsewhere, from God, is a kingdom of compassion, acceptance, difference and vulnerability.

When John writes of Jesus as faithful witness in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1. 4b-8), he means that Jesus, as witness, revealed to us the very image of God as he was God in human form. His actions and teaching together are the fullest expression of God that can be given and seen in a human being.

As firstborn of the dead, he was both the first to rise from death with a resurrected body and then the one who leads us into that same experience so we can also rise from death and live forever in God’s presence in a new heaven and earth that are joined together to become one.

As ruler of the kings of the earth, he is pre-eminent over all earthly monarchs because as God’s Son he precedes them all, being involved in the creation of the world and all that exists, and, through his life, death and resurrection, sits at the right hand of God and has the name that is above all other names and before which every knee in heaven and on earth must bow.

His death is the act by which we see that we are loved absolutely by God because he does not hold his only Son back from the sacrifice of his own life, breaking for a time the bond between Father and Son. Both were necessary for that to happen in order that we might come to know the depth of love that both have for us as human beings.

Whenever we respond to that love, we become part of his kingdom of love in which his people are his priests because they worship by living lives based on the example of Christ the King. A king and a kingdom where “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

The Jesus whose kingdom is not from this world is Christ the King, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He came into the world to testify to the truth and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice. He loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood making us to be a kingdom, priests serving God his Father forever. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

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Crown Him With Many Crowns.

Planting the life of Jesus in the world

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

Most of the Bible was originally written to those living in an agrarian society, people familiar with working the land, managing livestock, and raising crops. Many of Jesus’ parables involve the farming life. Not surprisingly, then, the Bible contains many references to sowing and reaping.

At the beginning of a New Year, we can look forward to the seedtime in the Spring, when the earth is warm enough and moist enough from the early rains to best guarantee the "sprouting" of the seed once it is planted in the ground, and also to the Harvest, when we reap what has been sown. The Bible encourages us, when it comes to our giving, that the more seed that is planted, the more fruit will be harvested. In other words, those who sow generously will reap more than those who don’t. But Jesus also speaks of multiplication; of seed sown that brings forth “a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” A single grain produces many grains, the smallest seed grows into the largest tree, and the seeds which fell in good soil bore one hundred grains each. We are to sow generously and trust to God to bring about the multiplication.

Jesus said in Matthew 17. 20, “if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” When we face a lack of harvest, and that is what the mountain here represents, our first reaction is often to look at the lack. We think about the lack, rehearse the lack, talk about the lack, sometimes at great length. Jesus says, in effect, ‘don’t start with the lack, instead start with the seed'. Imagine a farmer needs a thousand bushels of corn. He does not start with what he doesn’t have. He starts by sowing seed in the field, because the corn he wants will grow from the seed he plants.

When we face a lack of harvest in some area of life, instead of first trying to deal with the lack, consider first planting the seed. If, for example, we were lacking friendship would it help to lament the fact of being alone? It would be much better to try planting a seed of a smile or a helping hand.

What is the seed that we plant? Jesus said that many of his parables involving sowing and reaping were told to show us what the Kingdom of God is like. The most famous of his parables involving sowing and reaping is the Parable of the Sower in which Jesus identifies the seed as being the word of God (Mark 4.1-20). This is usually interpreted as meaning either the Bible or the Gospel but, if we take account of Jesus’ own identification of himself as the seed (John 12. 20 - 26), we can see that this also makes sense of the Parable of the Sower too as John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word of God. On this basis God the Father is the farmer who sows Jesus, his Son, into the world as the seed which is buried before bringing into being the Kingdom of God. So, what is sown is life; the life of Jesus.

The great American writer Frederick Buechner has written about this focus on the life of Jesus. He notes that when Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," “he does not say the church is the way”: “He does not say his teachings are the way, or what people for centuries have taught about him. He does not say religion is the way, not even the religion that bears his name. He says he himself is the way. And he says that the truth is not words, neither his words nor anyone else's words. It is the truth of being truly human as he was truly human and thus at the same time truly God's. And the life we are dazzled by in him, haunted by in him, nourished by in him is a life so full of aliveness and light that not even the darkness of death could prevail against it.”

Jesus lived a life of generosity by living life for others and, ultimately, by dying for others. Jesus offered himself, his life, to come alive in hundreds and then in thousands and then in millions of others. His words were a prophecy in His death his life “will burst forth, and grow up, and multiply itself in the great spiritual harvest of the world.” “The history of all that is best, and truest, and noblest in the life of eighteen centuries comes to us as the fulfilment. Hearts hardened, sinful, dead, that have been led to think of His death, and in thoughts of it have felt germs of life springing up and bursting the husks of their former prison, and growing up into living powers which have changed their whole being” (Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers). But first he had to die and if we, his followers, are going to pass on his life then we too will have to learn the pattern of life through death. The Jesus way is what we are called to emulate. That is what we are to plant, the life of Jesus in the world, because it is what God the Father originally planted in order to bring the Kingdom of God into being.

Sowing seeds of God in the world is not primarily about teachings or words, instead it is primarily about living life the Jesus way - the truth of being truly human as Jesus was truly human and thus at the same time truly God's. Think of it like this, if God the Father gave for a specific harvest by sowing Jesus into our world, who are we to do any different. Jesus said in John 5:19 “the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” We can do no better than Jesus. He did as He saw the Father do, and we should now do the same. (http://wayofpeace.net/newsletter/it-is-a-seed-we-sow/)

So, the seed that we plant is our self; our life lived the Jesus way. Jesus lived a life of self-sacrifice, of service, and of love. That is what we should seek to sow, as generously as possible, through our lives. Jesus came to give a new view of life. "We look on glory as conquest, the acquisition of power, the right to rule. He looked on it as a cross. He taught us three amazing paradoxes: that only by death comes life; that only by spending life do we retain it; that only by service comes greatness. And the extraordinary thing is that when we come to think of it, Christ’s paradoxes are nothing other than the truth of common sense; the truth of the natural cycle of seedtime and harvest.”

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Amazing Blondel - Safety In God Alone.

Visual Commentary on Scripture: Yet to Come

From December 1, the Advent Calendar from the Visual Commentary on Scripture has featured a link to a specially selected artwork. You simply click on the day's image to view the artwork and its associated commentary. An audio option is available, so you can enjoy listening to the commentary while exploring the high resolution image.

Designed to take you on a journey from the creation through to the Incarnation, encountering theophany and hope in the midst of uncertainty, this Advent Calendar offers a unique way to experience the Bible in dialogue with works of art. 

Today this wonderful Advent Calendar includes one of three commentaries I have written on paintings by Colin McCahon. The commentary focuses on what is 'Yet to Come' and is read by Richard Ayoade.

This reflection comes from my second exhibition for the Visual Commentary on Scripture which can be found at A Question of Faith | VCS (thevcs.org). It's called 'A Question of Faith' and explores Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

The McCahon exhibition varies the usual VCS format slightly by providing a greater focus on works by one artist than is usually the case. That is possible in this instance because all of the works in the exhibition explore aspects of Hebrews 11.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's Nebuchadnezzar, 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree, 1969, and Peter Howson's The Third Step, 2001.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

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James K. Baxter - Let Time Be Still.

Visual Commentary on Scripture: A Question of Faith

I'm delighted that my second exhibition for the Visual Commentary on Scripture has just been published and can be found at A Question of Faith | VCS (thevcs.org).

It's called 'A Question of Faith' and explores Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

The McCahon exhibition varies the usual VCS format slightly by providing a greater focus on works by one artist than is usually the case. That is possible in this instance because all of the works in the exhibition explore aspects of Hebrews 11.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's Nebuchadnezzar, 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree, 1969, and Peter Howson's The Third Step, 2001.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

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 Crowded House - Weather With You.