FaithQuest 2010 - "Jesus as Refugee"

This series is regarding the paintings 'performed' during Faith Quest 2010.  The weekend revolved around a movie theme and the speakers played with different characterizations of Jesus as found primarily in the Gospel of John.  This painting was painted while Jeff Medders spoke on 'Jesus as Refugee.'

An inciting incident.

So there’s this figure.  He’s walking-plodding- through a dense, turbulent space.  The space is charged with all kinds of frenetic energy.  And he looks/feels lethargic.  Indeed, the paint used to depict the space around him is physically thicker than he is- he has thick matter to trudge through if he’s going to get anywhere.

The imagery is culled from a combination of two artists- Nathan Olivera and John Millei.  Nathan Olivera has several paintings of figures standing in an abstract space.  His figures aren’t usually walking anywhere.  Even if they are they are vertical in orientation- the orientation of portraiture, of being.  Horizontality is the orientation of landscape, of journeying.  But the psychological aspect of his paintings are powerful, and I wanted to tap into that.

The second artist, John Millei, was one of my professors in graduate school.  He spent several years artistically analyzing and internalizing a series of frescos by the Italian Pre-Renaissance master Giotto.  The resulting paintings are very simple in terms of their basic elements- some ground for the ‘figures’ to walk on, the figures have been reduced to simple trapezoidal shapes, and then a colored background.  But the endless variety of treatments speaks to the fact that we are all essentially the same- working and moving within an endless variety of spaces and situations, both psychological and physical. 

In a couple of his paintings he incorporated either a gap in the ‘walkway’ or at least a section that had a different color.  And when I saw them, I was struck by the intensity of the relationship between the figure and this little space.  Most poignant for me were the times when the figures seemed to be just inching over the edge of this space.  So I tried to incorporate that in my image.  And the placement was important- it has to be just right.  And I think I got it because it’s teaching me right now.

Author Donald Miller in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years talks about the ‘inciting incident.’ In story-telling, particularly for movies, there has to be an ‘inciting incident’ that propels the character into his or her story.  It’s whatever happens that is the point of no return- they’re in it now.  And so as I’m looking at my solitary figure who has just inched passed this yellow space on his path, it excited me.  He just inched passed his inciting incident.  And that’s a good thing.  The space he’s in is not as threatening now.  Even though he may be struggling, caught in a dense but turbulent physical and psychological environment, it is not a moment of despair.  It is a moment of hope.  He is still moving forward.  And now that he’s past the point of no return you have this feeling that his endurance will pay off.  His story is just beginning.