Today I want to share 2 images that I created during Easter a few years ago.
Coming to grips with the Easter story has always been a challenge for me. As a child, I fully expected Jesus to come down from the cross and defeat his enemies. I was bewildered and disappointed when Jesus simply died.
The accounts in the Bible leave questions unanswered, and intellectual explorations only take me so far. I have found it helpful to experiment with different art materials while pondering my questions and meditating on the stories recorded in the four gospels. Sometimes I digitally manipulate photos I take during the creative process to try out different effects.
“Easter Saturday” is an example of this approach.
The stories in the Bible focus on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but I imagine that Easter Saturday was a time of grief and utter bewilderment for Jesus’ loved ones and friends, even though Jesus had talked about his betrayal, death and resurrection before it happened.
There were also hints on Good Friday that the world order was changing, as light and darkness seemed to switch places. (It went dark at midday, and the light in the Holy of Holies was unexpectedly exposed when the heavy temple curtains ripped from top to bottom.)
Who can think clearly though when emotions take over?
I incorporated some bright inks into my piece to show that there was hope, life and beauty on Easter Saturday, even if it went unnoticed at the time. I also wanted to show a sense of disorientation and confusion and of being sucked into an emotional vortex, so used a filter in Photoshop Elements 6 to create the desired effect. (I am still working with software that came out almost 2 decades ago and will continue using it until it stops working. This is part of my attempt to make environment-friendly choices in my whole production process.)
“Easter Story” developed out of my exploration of “Easter Saturday”. Whereas “Easter Saturday” is focussed on the emotions of a single day, “Easter Story” zooms out and looks at the larger narrative. It has elements that symbolize the whole of the Easter weekend: The cross for Good Friday, a round black shape that could stand for the darkened sun or the stone that was used to seal Jesus’ grave and butterflies as symbols of the resurrection.
The 2 prints would look good hung side by side, so I have made them available in the same sizes, either 20cm x 20cm (8″ x 8″) and 30cm x 30cm (12″ x 12″). This includes a 1.5 cm (0.6″) border.
Both images are available as giclée prints on long-lasting, environment-friendly Hahnemühle Bamboo paper. They are sent out by a carbon-neutral printer who has printing facilities in the UK, Germany, and USA – which means there is no duty to pay for EU or US orders. Delivery costs are charged per order rather than per print, so ordering 2 or more prints costs the same as ordering 1 print.