ArtWay

You are invited to join us for an online event to celebrate the launch of ArtWay’s new website!

After months of hard work, we are delighted to announce the launch of ArtWay’s new website on Thursday, 19 September. Hear from ArtWay’s Editorial Advisor, Laurel Gasque, as she unpacks the multifaceted history and legacy of ArtWay. Editor-in-chief of ArtWay (English), Otto Bam, will share the vision of ArtWay and talk about the future of the arts and faith more broadly, as we step into this exciting new era.

Register here: https://kirbylaingcentre.co.uk/events/

A visual meditation for the Feast of Transfiguration by Alfred Bronswijk

https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1353&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

“The invisible light that radiates from the other” – Jonathan Evens interviews Hannah Rose Thomas

https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1351&lang=en&action=show&type=current&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3zR1CYicemWqhuGMBKwFVE4BBn2ovdqaxBTWdMed-H-d8pYVr45s3arBQ_aem_ABGxoESIgsyFC66OHNY9cA

In our latest post, Ydi Coetsee Carstens writes, "In this painting by South African artist Gideon Nel, each form is lovingly selected, each hue considered, every reference deeply meaningful. This is evident in all of Nel’s work, and particularly this work, titled in Afrikaans 'Die Saaier, 136' ('The Sower, 136'). Resembling a screen print, the painting is in fact acrylic on canvas, drawn free hand and carefully painted with a brush. The border is painted in white acrylic. Seen up close, the brushwork is evident, which allows one to imagine the artist meticulously colouring each plane to its utmost edge...
Incarnational art, like this work, asks to be experienced with the whole body. I was reminded of this when I first saw 'The Sower, 136' in person. Unlike an AI generated image, this image breathes materiality. Where the artist’s brush meets canvas like this, a visual song is heard. invites the viewer to sing along, to playfully discover the layered significance of the work, or simply enjoy its visual unity. It involves a give and take between viewer and artist which artificially generated artworks cannot replicate."

One playful discovery to be made in Nel’s painting is the reference to Vincent van Gogh’s The Sower, painted in 1888, and now part of the Emil Bührle Collection in Zürich, Switzerland..."

Read the full meditation: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1346&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

Gideon Nel, 'Die Saaier, 136' ('The Sower, 136'), acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm.

“My subject matter tends to always be about where I find myself in relationship to my life’s journey: a relentless need to find spiritual meaning in a world that tends to gravitate towards chaos and the absurd.

This sculptural quest of mine brings into play many recurring motifs in my work, such as hands, spheres, eggs, bird forms, cruciforms, lecterns, boats, fish, chairs, trees, clouds, snakes, the abacus and others. Although these are all familiar objects, when seen together in various arrangements, they create new synergies that will inspire contemplation in those engaging with them.”

Read the full interview with South African sculptor Gert Swart (GERT SWART's ART PAGE.), now on ArtWay.eu: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1344&lang=en&action=show&type=current

‘The Kitchen: Carrying the Milk’ (2009) is a video performance by Marina Abramović. Recorded without an audience in an abandoned Carthusian nunnery in Gijón, (Asturias, Spain), the performance is an ode to the mystic Teresa of Ávila who described how she was lifted up by God’s hand while she was working in the kitchen. Abramović recorded a series of videos in the monastery, of which this is one of the most tranquil. Because of her clothing and hairstyle, she herself looks like one of the nuns who used to populate the convent. In the twelve minutes that the film lasts little happens.

Just as it is almost impossible to keep your arms and hands still for long periods of time without any aid, so it is for the mind. When you live, you move. In the end it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, how much you meditate. This very simple task, keeping your attention completely in the here and now, remains incredibly difficult. Even for an artist and modern mystic like Abramović, for whom meditation and ‘sitting still’ have become an inseparable part of her life and work.

Read Stefan Belderbos’s full meditation on Abramović’s performance: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1343&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

This week's visual meditation is on the astonishing rock-hewn Church of Saint George in Lalibela, Ethiopia

“How this structure was carved out of the living rock still remains a mystery. Some Ethiopian Orthodox believers credit the creation of this church to supernatural intervention,” explains James Romaine.

Read the full meditation: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1342&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

David Lyle Jeffrey writes, "Rubens’ resurrected Lord is glorious, but far from manageable. That, Rubens suggests, ought to be a source of abiding Christian comfort. He is a great god and a mighty king above all gods."
Read the full meditation: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1339&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

"For me music, like painting, is intrinsically spiritual. Although practice of each is very different, they do have much in common. Mainly slowing time and extending and exploring the present. Also revealing on the outside the otherwise hidden inner life of the person doing it."

Artist Matthew Askey's Hornsea Stations of the Cross profoundly inhabit and speak to their immediate situation in space and time – yet simultaneously enable viewers to immerse themselves in Christ's journey to the cross.

Jonathan Evens asks Askey about his artistic and spiritual journey in a new interview on ArtWay.eu. Read the full interview: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1338&lang=en&action=show&type=current

Anticipating the Feast of the Annunciation (normally celebrated on the 25th of March – this year on the 8th of April), we look at Lamidi O. Fakeye's "Annunciation of the Angel to Mary."

Scott Rayl writes,
"In most Western depictions of the Annunciation, Gabriel holds a lily or a branch from Paradise. The lily recognizes Mary's purity, while an olive branch symbolizes the peace found on earth by the dove at the end of the Noah's ark story. However, in this Annunciation image, Gabriel extends a kola branch to Mary, whom he finds pounding yams (normally eaten with soup). Kola nuts are highly symbolic among many Nigerian linguistic groups, most notably the Yoruba and Igbo (a kola fruit containing the nuts can be seen on the end of the branch). Kola nuts can be offered to a visitor as a sign of hospitality, or among friends as a token of comradeship or goodwill. Or as one writer has stated, the Igbos "believe the kola tree was the first tree on earth and therefore its fruit, the first on earth. . . [They] believe that 'kola is life', kola symbolizes peace. This is why an Igbo man would welcome you with kola nuts when you visit his home, saying 'onye wetere oji, wetere udo', which translates to 'he who brings kola, brings peace.'”..."

Read the full meditation here: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1337&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

The photograph, "Blanket I", by the artist Güler Ates, is part of "Stations of the Cross Hengelo" in the Netherlands, an exhibition that leads like a Via Dolorosa through the former industrial city of Hengelo, past fourteen works of art that are reminiscent of the Stations of the Cross which mark the events surrounding Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection.

Anikó Ouweneel writes: "Ates comes from the tradition of the Alevis, a mystical form of Islam, influenced by Sufism. Her work deals with migration, exile, flight, and finding human common denominators. When I ask her what she wants to convey to her audience from the perspective of her spirituality, she says: 'Be curious about other people's spirituality, keep asking questions and do not judge!'"

Read the full visual meditation here: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1336&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

Our visual meditation this week is on Bulgarian artist Silvia Dimitrova's "Miriam".

Otto Bam writes: "The painting of Miriam invites us to look deeper at the character of this extraordinary woman and the events in which she played such a pivotal role. Behind Miriam we see various events unfolding, almost as if her song becomes visible in the painting. Exodus calls Miriam a prophetess – it is through songs and poems that history is preserved in the memory of a people. Miriam’s song prophetically proclaims, calls to remembrance, and celebrates sacred history."

Read the full meditation here: https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1333&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations

As we come to Candlemas, we’re featuring again a meditation by Jonathan Evens on Giampaolo Babetto's candle holders.
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Evens writes, "Leonard Cohen sang that there is a crack in everything through which the light gets in. St Paul told the Christians in Corinth that they had the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in their hearts, but that this treasure was in clay jars, so that it might be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and did not come from them.⁠
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He used this image of light in containers seen through cracks to assure the Corinthian Christians that they had the light of God in their lives, despite the fallibility and frailty of those lives. Like Cohen he suggested that there are fractures and flaws running through each of our lives, but that these imperfections actually enable the light within to be seen more clearly.⁠.."⁠

Read the full meditation at https://artway.eu/artway.php?id=1332&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations