Spirit

Artist: melodious
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Spirit

oil on canvas
This Painting was a commissioned piece for this passage of scripture.
Luke 4:18-19
“The spirit of the lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, sight to the blind, release for the captives and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
A little explanation:
You will find 12 sections to represent one year – ‘the year of the Lord’s favour’.
Then I set to work on what would be in each of the 12 parts?
One day I was writing out a shopping list and I started to write what I’d need in order to really live this passage… or what I had already perhaps…
Spirit, Light, Voice, Faith, Uncertainty, Hope, Hands, Water, Oil, Feet, Strength, Boldness…
This is a great sending forth… an annointing… a comissioning…
I realised that I had all that it takes and that it would take all that I have in order to live according to this bold sending out….
Starting from the top left hand corner you will find water… I think, living in Australia, i am so very much aware of how precious water is for life and how water is definitely good news for the poor. Next you will find Hope, the small window of hope at the top signifies that there is always hope, even in the darkest places.
In the top right hand corner you will find Hands, these are actually a painting of a man’s hands that had just saved a life. We can use our hands for so much good in the world and from small things done by hand, incredble things can be achieved. I also think these hands relate so well to the Homeless man’s hands in the bottom left hand corner and therefore connect the painting.
The green is for boldness – if you look closely at the original artwork you can see the word Boldness written in there, I find green such a difficult colour to work with and it takes extreme boldness for me to paint with green… a step out of a comfort zone!
The bubble looking circle is for Strength… sometimes we take strength for granted. What is strength is all contexts, physical, emotional, spiritual etc…? Like a bubble… perhaps it is my interpretation that strength is a gift and it can exist simultaneously as both tangible and intangible in our personal awareness. Voice is represented with words – written and lifted up… we need to have voices for the poor, the oppressed, the captives, the refugees, the neglected, the abused, the blind, the sick, the forgotten…
The child with questioning eyes represents Faith, she has seen the world for what it really is and she looks to us. Then we have oil, oil for annointing – for mission… but I chose to place a woman in this section who represents the middle east, here is a woman who has seen so much devastation in the world because of oil and money and power and war.
Light is represented by a shadow of us, and just how much darkness we walk in, we need to shine light into that darkness. The Homeless man represents Uncertainty – seems a bit like the odd word out in the list – but I like it… its says so much about what it means to be human in all our brokenness – but we are all connected! It’s about not having all the answers but being able to take notice and to see reality in front of us… may the oppressed go free because we choose to step out and take risks! I think Spirit is pretty self explanitory – but its about us all being in this together for the good of all humankind… this is a crowd that can achieve amazing things together!!!
The last section of the painting represents Feet… Feet of readiness to take us where we need to be… it may be just one step at a time… but we have to start walking and taking action. The Spirit is upon us as you can see linking through every section of the painting. I hope that this has helped you understand the work a little more. Thank you for taking time to read this!

Spirit belongs to the following groups:

"♥ show me a sign ♥", Live, Love, Dream: , Living Christianity, Religious Art & Photography and Spiritual Art