‘It Felt Like a Community Was On My Wall’
A Q&A with artist Ellen Elmes, about painting portraits of the 23 victims of the 2019 El Paso shooting. By Wendy McDowell
Category: Art
Paths to Abstraction: Spirituality in the Work of Three Women Artists
Exploring the link between spiritual liberation and abstract artistic expression in paintings of Hilma af Klint, Hilla Rebay, and Vicci Sperry. By Ann Braude
A Heartwarming and Heartbreaking Exhibit
Syria: A Living History, a recent exhibit at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, focuses on the human context of art and artifacts. By Robert Israel
The Mogao Caves as Cultural Embassies
Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road, an exhibition at the Getty Center, Los Angeles. By Marcia Reed
The Conscious Heart
By making us present to ourselves, the practices of art and of prayer can cultivate awareness of our inmost being, waking us to love and compassion. By Mary Anderson
Artists Make Good Theologians
Longing for Mary and for the unsayable in the poetry of Mary Szybist and the art of Hayley Barker. By Sarah Sentilles
Religious Law and the Visual Secular
What do we mean when we say a work of Western art, especially a representation of religious law, has both “secular” and “religious” significance? By Suzanne Smith
The Work of Art and the Art of Life
Art, religion, ritual, dance, and song are not different phenomena, but moments in an existential struggle to act vicariously upon the world—bringing it into being. By Michael Jackson
Two-Part Invention
Our vocational lives tend to be complex, unpredictable searches for meaning on many levels, from the quotidian to the transcendent. By Nancy J. Nordenson
Exposing the Fine Lines
A review of Susie Linfield’s The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. By Chris Herlinger
Into the Infinite Together
Patti Smith’s Just Kids. By Stephanie Paulsell
Reading the ‘Book of Nature’
“Natural Revelations,” an exhibit of paintings by Susan Swartz. By William A. Graham
Immaterial Witness
A painter discovers that spirituality can be found in what is sensed rather than in what is seen. By Madeleine Avirov
Leaning toward Enlightenment
Shinjo Ito’s artworks are both beautiful and powerful works of art and profoundly religious images. By Margaret R. Miles
A Lasting Impression
Examining biblical art in a secular society. By William Dyrness
Generating the Transcendent
Thereligiousbelieverandthe formalistconnoisseurlookatart inverydifferentways.Athird waymightbeimaginativeempathy. By Ken Johnson
