Artists resurrect Easter meaning
BY MARIA GALINOVIC
26 Mar, 2010 04:12 PM
AS a result of being former Blake Prize finalists, Troy Quinliven and Kevin McKay were among 15 contemporary artists asked to interpret the Stations of the Cross for an Easter art show at St Ives Uniting Church.
Quinliven of Gymea and McKay of Sutherland referred to their experience of the death of Quinliven's younger brother as a way of exploring death, grief and the religious and spiritual life.
Clay Quinliven was killed in a car accident in December two years ago.
McKay, 44, and Quinliven, 26, had gone through about seven years of art studies together and had become friends.
"I shared in the grief and horror of that awful day, which has fuelled my contribution to the 13th Station,'' McKay said.
"In between the horror of the death what I noticed was a strong sense of family and community support.''
The 13th Station is about Christ being taken down from the cross.
"There is the horror of death and the ladder to take the body off the cross. The ladder also signifies how people respond to grief in a positive way they rise up in response.''
Quinliven was allocated the 15th Station, the resurrection, which is a relatively new addition to the original 14.
On the day of his brother's death, one of the first things Quinliven observed was an opened book by his bedside.
"My brother was half way through the book, and I remember thinking that the rest would never be read, so I started to use the book as a metaphor,'' he said.
Quinliven's tryptich starts with a book as a cocoon, symbolising a new beginning.
"In the second painting the books represent Christ's body they are books without pages like a body without a soul,'' he said.
"The third is a whole book with blank pages it is about a new beginning and a transendence of death. It was the right time for me to do this work.''
This is the fourth year in which the Uniting Church's Reverend Doug Purnell has asked artists to explore the Easter story and "to bring a lived experience into conversation with the tradition we have received''. Purnell is a Blake Prize board member and an artist.
The Stations of the Cross opens tomorrow, March 26, until Easter Sunday, April 4. Venue: St Ives Uniting Church, corner of Douglas Street and Mona Vale Road, St Ives.
