Wabi-sabi Triptych

Baroque churches irritate me. I know that the gold, glitter and excessive ornamentation is supposed to depict the glory of heaven, but I always suspect that these churches were also constructed to display the wealth of donors and the political clout of bishops. And the horror vacui, the abhorrence of empty space, the need to fill every nook and cranny with ornamentation, reminds me of those who are always talking to God and can never sit in silence. If you are rich and powerful you often need to crowd out the voice of God.

Wabi-sabi is the Zen aesthetic that displays the beauty that can be found in death, decay and imperfection. In this piece I have used barn siding, old shipping pallets and tarnished brass candle holders. The corpus (body of Jesus) is a reproduction from a crucifix in a German Baroque cathedral, but here it hangs on humble scraps of wood. Behind the crucifix, which is a symbol of death, are grape leaves and wheat stalks – of course a reference to the eucharist: “This is my body, broken for you; this is my blood, shed for you.” For wheat to become bread, and for grapes to become wine, the plant has to die. It seems to me that there is a lot of Wabi-sabi in the crucifixion.

Today is the Sunday commemorating the Kingship of Christ. With this triptych I want to offer a view of Christ’s kingship - a kingship cloaked in death, decay and imperfection -  over against the opulent depictions of wealth and power.