Feature Articles
What is a Christian perspective on contemporary art? Well, obviously, there are as many perspectives as there are Christians, but common threads emerge as we share our thoughts and experiences. Here are a selection of articles on topics relating to the contemporary visual arts in New Zealand. More can be found in the CS Arts archives and read by downloading the editions.
How the Light Gets In
I first encountered a Colin McCahon painting in the mid 1970s when I was Ecumenical Chaplain at Victoria University of Wellington. A gigantic mural appeared on the wall of the entrance foyer of a new lecture block—now known as the Maclaurin Building. It featured an enormous 3 metre-high ‘I AM’ in white and black letters, astride a stylised but recognisably New Zealand landscape, with texts reminiscent of the biblical prophets....
Reinventing a New Zealand icon
Search our landscape and you will come across one familiar building. Its conceptual forms were birthed in the years following the great travail of the intertribal wars, and its physical structures converged the belief systems of two vastly different races...
The architecture of redemption: Death and resurrection in architectural expression
The Christian story of the world’s redemption comes to a climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus. For almost as long as the Christian tradition itself has been underway, that story has been celebrated, enacted, and proclaimed through the built form of architecture...
Chasing after the wind (editorial, CS Arts issue 30 - June 2008)
‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’ They could be the rantings of a postmodern philosopher-poet, railing cynically at society in general. But these words open the ancient biblical book of Ecclesiastes. They speak of a constant factor in human experience that we are only beginning to acknowledge...
Is God a postmodernist?
I was born in 1972 at National Women’s Hospital in Auckland. I’m a child of scratch and sniff Sunday School stickers, Abba, polo necks (the first time round), Battle Star Galactica and anti-nuclear protests. I am a child of postmodern times...
Archived features