Articles of Faith

September 16 - December 4, 2021
group exhibition at the Mitchell Art Gallery, MacEwan University, Edmonton AB

“...it is not without reason that faith has been compared to an anchor that has caught on the bottom and checked the vessel in its course, while the open and free ocean stretched beyond as far as the eye can reach. And who shall break the anchor from his heart? When you shake it loose in one place, faith settles its hold somewhere else....”

– Jean-Marie Guyau, The Non-Religion of the Future: A Sociological Study

Articles of Faith brings together artworks that explore how faith tethers us, often through ancestral practices, and whether or not we choose it. Featuring the works of Borys Tarasenko, Emmanuel Osahor, Olivia Johnston, and Thirza Cuthand, this exhibition demonstrates the omnipresence of faith practices that at once provide us a deeply historical visual language to describe sacredness where it is often neglected, while also colluding with colonialism and other systems of oppression.

Articles of Faith is informed by the experiences artists shared with curator Carolyn Jervis and sociologist Dr. Robin Willey in interviews conducted as part of a four year multi-sited ethnographic research project that explores relationships between art and faith.

This exhibition and research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, MacEwan University, and Concordia University of Edmonton.

exhibition documentation by Justin Wonnacott

Christianity is no longer a part of life in the global north in the way it once was. Our individual relationships with the church tend now to be fraught with complexity and tension, even tragedy. I was raised in an extremely secular household; there were no weekly visits to church, no sunday school, no Bible study. I am convinced, however, that Christianity has shaped the way I think about myself, exist in the world, and interact with others. My background and upbringing suggests that I am culturally Catholic; the ways I have come to understand and exist in the world have deep linkages to many of the habits and behaviours of Catholicism. 

As an art historian, and someone who is interested in visual culture, it is hard to avoid the kinds of representations that I have here attempted to recreate and reference. I am so compelled by these kinds of images within art history, particularly depictions of women. Their original purpose, or the stories they reference, are for me secondary to their aesthetic. Works representing some kind of Biblical narrative are ever-present in art history and as such function as a very tangible representation and reminder of the culture that was until very recently a hyperreligious one. Many people throughout history, unable to read and write, relied on these visual works to teach them the stories of the Bible, Pope Gregory declaring the paintings on church walls “the Bible of the illiterate.” Visual art is and continues to be part of the way in which so many have learned this text, and yet its endless interpretability provides for a different kind of learning and understanding than speech or the written word. 

I am fascinated by the role of holiness in an agnostic culture. I believe holiness can exist in a secular way, connecting us to ideas that are ancient and yet still relevant in contemporary life: ideas about magic, dreams, visions and hallucinations. With these works, I identify the holiness, sacredness, and magic that potentially exists in each and every individual.  By adding attributes, often delicate halos, to my subjects, I recast them as divine, set apart somehow from the quotidian realm. In our increasingly secular world, a saint may take form in those around us who are exceptionally talented, giving, captivating, thoughtful, kind. Existing between heaven and earth, or the sacred and the profane, these holy people have experienced suffering; their trauma has made them into the sacred beings that they are. Perhaps scarring, both interior and exterior, is holy, drawing its bearer closer to heaven.

Crucial to an understanding of many of these works is the fact that I have integrated ancient iconographies and contemporary technology. The gold frames in particular are created using a CNC machine and subsequently hand-gilded by me using a composite gold leaf. While these works’ imagery, shape, colour, texture and feel are immediately recognizable as iconic, every part of them is produced through contemporary means.