Blake Ward

This Is Not Christ

ReThink Collection

This Is Not Christ
This Sculpture is presently FOR SALE
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This sculpture is firmly based in tradition, both figurative and spiritual, the familiarity of this image is unquestionable, yet the artwork does not portray the devotional icon we know so well. This figure has been appropriated from the original context detaching it from a religious and the ceremonial pre-set and questioning the icon’s conventional and intended message.

There is no agony portrayed here and the crucifix can neither be seen as consolatory nor redemptive. The graffiti, like a tattoo, denies the sanctity of the figure, defiling the temple and suggesting that the Christ before you is not what is historically implied.

A message, painted on both the front and back of the figure, asks the audience to look past the familiar devotional image. Although not without pity this figure portrays no anguish or suffering. Relaxed, eyes closed and head bowed this figure is between life and death, combining the two and contesting the Christian idea of redemption. Rather, it refers to yet another altered version of an excessively translated myth, confusing the human and the divine, yet perhaps allowing an alternative place for the concept of spirit.

The work and shows only a man, dying without even the reference defined by the symbol of the cross causing the viewer to question the existence of any religious dimension to this unfamiliar treatment of a familiar object.

This work breaches the conventions of religious art by denying the distinction between the divine and the human. It violates moral rules and shows a disregard for conceptual boundaries concerning faith, doctrine and dogma.

It is an assertion of artistic authority and places in question the meaning and legitimatise of the primary icon representing the several religious denominations. A blasphemy in that the work questions the truth of the written history and the faith behind that history. The work remains an Iconoclasm questioning doctrinal truths concerning not only the crucifixion but also the resurrection that was to follow.

The intention is to challenge the jurisprudence governing Western religions and opposes the historical interpretation as accepted in recorded Christian history as well as to suggest more probable circumstances or series of events that should be considered in a progressive examination of historic events.

The prohibition of sexual liberty is illustrated by the nakedness of the figure. The violence portrayed through the pose is conflicts with by the lack of tension in the body and the relaxed portrait of the dead or unconscious man. This repression of violence is mirrored through the portrayal of death and the confrontation of sexuality of a sacred image.

The principles concerning the acceptance of religious doctrine are refuted through this work and the solution offered replaces the notion of sanctity with the idea of a more secular human condition. The intention of the artist is to offer a more scientifically plausible record of events while suggesting that the basis of spirituality remains in faith rather than doctrine.

This sculpture relates to the tradition in religious art to portray this icon in a conventional manner, yet here attention is drawn to the humanity of this pitiable figure and to insist that the work reveals a man rather than a deity, thus denying Christianity’s founding miracle and the historical doctrine surro

Datenblatt

Abmessungen
96cm, 90cm, 36cm (Höhe, Breite, Tiefe)
Gewicht
25kg
Edition
Edition of 3 plus 1 Artist Proof
Material
Bronze
Stil
Figurativ, Realistisch, Klassisch
Thema
Körper, Gesellschaft, Spiritualität
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