Artist Statement (Spring 2024)

When I started making art in college, it wasn’t religious. I focused more on stories I liked and sometimes mental health, or whatever theme fit a project’s prompt. However, spiritual themes were often present and made the inevitable transition to religious art easy.

As I started making religious art and art inspired by the divine, it was because I wanted to put visuals to the stories and mythologies of my religion: Episcopal Christianity. It was a way to learn about the religion that I realized I wanted to stay in and a way to process other forms of spirituality I have experienced. 

As an aspiring icon writer and general storyteller/creator, I have drawn inspiration from what I see as spiritual around me, and artists such as Kelly Latimore and Josephine Wall. Of course, I also draw inspiration from religious sculptures and the writings of and about saints, and I even go through struggles of writing poetry, collects, and prayers to further enhance my work.

Yet As I’ve continued I’ve realized a few things. One is that, as my peers have expressed, it is very hard to critique religious art, I have been told the artwork I make can be confusing. The reality is that there is an information gap between what I know and what I want to communicate to the audience. Despite this, I have also realized through my peers' comments that my emotions are what comes through in my work–even if the history or the intellectual inspirations do not. The more personal my artwork gets, the more universal it becomes.

This has led me to reconsider my range of themes. I started with disability, queerness, color, figures (such as Jonathan and David, Lazarus, and St. Julian of Norwich), and emotions of sorrow; but now, I am also exploring themes of happiness. I want to focus on the reimagination of God and all parts of the divine as forces for joy rather than trauma and shame, as they have so often been used and depicted. 

I am excited to move forward with my artistic practice and explore old themes and newer ones, alongside experimenting with different mediums. In the past year, I’ve added painting, markers, ballpoint pens, and glitter to my pieces. The divine is present on a great scale yes, and there is a long tradition of icon painters behind me but my religious art has never looked traditional.  As I move away further into my own interpretations of iconography and find my audience, my vision for my art remains. I want to recenter the divine and spiritual that I know exists in daily life and the mundane and showcase my own journey with religion.