07456
July 25, 2007

Asian Christians take scriptural themes to art

by Chris Herlinger
Religion News Service

NEW YORK — If Nalini Jayasuriya, Sawai Chinnawong, Nyoman Darsane, He Qi and Wisnu Sasongko are not household names in the Western art world, they are still better known in the West than in their own countries.
   
These five contemporary Asian artists are all Christians, working as members of a minority religious tradition on a continent where Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam command the largest share of loyalty.
    
That has not stopped these artists from producing biblically inspired art that expresses deeply held religious beliefs.
   
Those purchasing their art are generally Western collectors or Christian churches or institutions.
   
“Their art has a very specific audience: It’s by and for believers. It’s very evangelical, supported by believers in the West,” said Patricia Pongracz, curator-at-large of New York City’s Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA). “It’s a slice of something most of us would not know is there.”
   
MOBIA is trying to change that with its exhibit “The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today,” which continues through Sept. 18 and features the very distinct and varied work of these five Asian artists.
    
From Sri Lanka comes the art of Nalini Jayasuriya, which shows a marked mixture of Asian inspiration and Christian iconography, as in “Reigning Lord,” a depiction of Jesus reposed like the Buddha. Jayasuriya served as an artist-in-residence at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) offices in Louisville in the mid-1990s.
   
Thailand's Sawai Chinnawong is perhaps the most literal of the five artists, portraying specific biblical scenes ranging from the Garden of Eden to the Nativity. The work of Bali’s Nyoman Darsane has the distinct air of popular Asian art and is the most graphic of the five artists, as in its portrayal of Christ’s crucifixion.
   
The boldly colored work of China’s He Qi displays a clear influence of Western cubists and modernists; the work of Indonesia’s Wisnu Sasongko is at once hauntingly abstract and “evangelical” in spirit, as in his “A New Man” and “Close to Salvation.”
   
At the exhibit’s opening in June, MOBIA Executive Director Ena Heller said He Qi and Wisnu Sasongko demonstrate the marked differences possible when artists tackle similar subject matter. Sasongko, she said, “takes it deeper” with a distinctive, abstract vision. But He Qi’s more literal depiction of Christian iconography is also impressive in the way it communicates a biblical story, such as the Annunciation.
   
The dynamic of “being rooted in the world” is also evident in the artists’ work. Bali’s Nyoman Darsane, for example, seems to be influenced by threads of leftist liberation theology in linking the Christian message to an identification with the poor and downtrodden.
   
Darsane, whose painting draws on traditional Balinese sources, is clear that his work is meant to be distinctly and unapologetically religious and stems from the struggle of being Christian in a predominantly Hindu environment. Darsane has said: “Bali is my tradition. Christ is my life.”
   
The exhibit also represents a curious example of cultural globalization: the depiction of a religion with Asian roots, which became the dominant faith of the West, re-interpreted by Asian artists who sell much of their art to Western collectors.
   
“That’s a global dynamic, and not a very well-known one,” Pongracz said.
   
Of course, in the end, art is appreciated for its personal vision.

John W. Cook, a professor emeritus of religion and the arts at Yale University, wrote that the five artists “create art that has as much to do with their own stories and beliefs as it does with the scriptural source, which they believe has given them the vision to see their lives and work in the context of a living God.”