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ART & LITERATURE
BEAUTY IS SACRED
Jain Education International 48
PHILIP VANN weaves the tapestry of different artists inspired by faith
Il true art surely partakes of the sacred: as a mindful meditation on human vulnerability illumined by a sense of transcendent
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mystery. Much contemporary art lacks such qualities; it oozes surface glitter and ingenious confidence trickery, like images in some slick advertising campaign; often it can seem downright nihilistic. Faith, on the other hand - a recent exhibition at Nottingham Castle of works by eleven contemporary British-based painters and sculptors - is a moving and perceptive reminder how awe-inspiring and revelatory modern art can be.
Curated by Richard Davey, Chaplain of Nottingham Trent University, this show did not set out to prove any didactic religious point. It showed works by artists from a range of backgrounds and faiths - Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh. Davey says: "In bringing these artists together, I am not seeking to find a universal sensibility of faith. I have merely wanted to demonstrate that the presencely
of faith in an artist can produce a distinctive sensibility within a work; one that is defined by attitudes of hope, transformation and incarnation."
Unlike traditional artists working within the strict boundaries of a religious aesthetic - such as makers of Christian icons, Buddhist tangkas, Jain sculptures, Sufi miniatures, Islamic calligraphies, Jewish illuminated manuscripts contemporary artists. are not necessarily yoked, happily or otherwise, to any particular devotional discipline. They are free to choose what religious symbols or imagery to adopt, adapt or abandon. Indeed, many religious artistic conventions have by now become so tired in their incessant re-telling that it now takes a daringly original artist to re-juvenate and transfigure them, to make them feel alive and fresh again. And that is what many of the artists here succeed in doing: open-minded, alert, everquestioning, they make images, deeply inspired by the atmosphere of their faith, which are at once intimately personal and universal in nature.
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