_SAINT SEBASTIAN_

 

SAINT SEBASTIAN

Oil on cradled canvas

6’ x 4’

April 15 – May 22, 2022

 

 

I envisioned Saint Sebastian against a Nature setting, specifically the outskirts of Marawi City, beside Lake Lanao, and then deconstructed the martyrdom episode. If Christians were martyred for their faith, could not non-Christians have been killed for their own faith too? Christians did do that to non-Christians in the past, and continue to do so. Most Christians today may no longer actually murder heathen by race, color, and creed, but they consistently practice discrimination against them—in their recruitment for jobs, in their preference for neighbors and friends, and in extending help and charity only to their own kind.

 

This painting commenced during Ramadan of 2022. In this painting there is a reference to the lumad who were massacred by Christian soldiers in the south. I made Sebastian one such lumad from Mindanao. A sacred torogan is in the distance, and a mosque in the far distance. Sebastian is tied to a ficus tree in full bloom with golden-yellow berries at the peak of summer. This is the same tree that grows outside M.’s café, before we had it trimmed in preparation for the onset of the rainy season. The mayana plants in the foreground, typically roadside plants, are those in our roof deck garden.

 

The auditory stimulus I used while making this painting is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPX7NDsKQks. Do listen to it while viewing the work. 

Peter Is Called to Ministry and Martyrdom

Peter Is Called to Ministry and Martyrdom

Oil on cradled canvas

6’ x 4.5’

December 8, 2021 – January 6, 2022

This is a companion painting to The Pauline Letters.

Daybreak. After catching a net full of grouper, the fisherman Peter is about to turn his boat and paddle home. As he does so, he has a vision of the medieval papal crown, and the tip of his oar’s shaft takes on the image of an inverted cross.

The painting alludes not only to the miracle of the fishing nets, Peter’s calling as a fisher of men, his martyrdom, and his designation as the rock on which the Catholic church is built, but also to the later blinding of Paul of Tarsus and Constantine’s vision of the cross in the heavens.

The Galilean boat is a smaller version of the fishing boat in Christ Calming The Storm. The throat and blade of the oar, however, are not Galilean; they are a memory of the artist’s visit to Pagsanjan Falls many years ago. The halo round the papal crown was made to simulate the shape of a Tibetan ghau gau, or portable shrine, as, in The Pauline Letters, Paul’s halo is comprised of the Tibetan lotus mandala.

The auditory stimulus I used while making this painting is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLjEtvNe7CI. Do listen to it while viewing the painting.