Monday 22 February 2010

Lent 1: Temptation


This picture is based on the story of the Temptation in Luke 4:1-13. My starting point was hunger, which is why the focus of the painting is a black hole which is distorting the world around it. The experience of physical hunger is used by the devil as a lure to draw Jesus from his path. Jesus has a hunger for order or wholeness and the devil offers him a 'quick fix' through political, military or economic domination. Satisfying these hungers would produce chaos and then oblivion. The ultimate risk is that love itself, symbolised by the blood-red colour on the left could be sucked into the chaos and disappear. Meanwhile, evil, represented at the top right, is hoping to manipulate all this from the edges, while heaven, on the top left, is standing at a distance, waiting but not interfering...

This was a quick and fun painting to produce and I'm relatively pleased with the end result. My intention is to produce a series of paintings during Lent 2010 based on the lectionary readings for each week. I would like the pictures to work together as a single piece so I may continue to use a semi-abstract approach.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Tim,
Thank you for this. I found the picture very strong and moving on its own, but the commentary gave me the necessary threads I needed really to appreciate it. I do hope you are continuing to produce pictures in the series. I'd appreciate va picture to unravel this week's lectionary - if possible before Sermon time on Sunday!
Could you let us know the medium and the picture size, so that we can visualise it more fully?
wendy