Despite what some critics might say about religious people and intelligence, there is a Christian cognoscenti that discerns quality among different kinds of contemporary literature, art, theater, and music.
And while Berean bookstores are filled with religious kitsch and radio stations blast songs of pop Christ or arena Jesus anthems much to the derision of the irreligious, what is frequently overlooked are the hundreds upon hundreds of serious Christian artists in all fields who maintain the great tradition of producing inspired works devoted to illustrating the profound depths of spiritual experience and discovery.
It was my pleasure to discover such an artist through the internet whose work I was able to appreciate at first glance.
Matt Andrade of Massachusetts is one of those visual artists laboring in semi-obscurity. He doesn't paint pictures of a blue-eyed Jesus or people rapt in prayer or little children traipsing among the lions and lambs in a new Eden. He paints pictures of cars, and guns, and cathedrals placed in strange landscapes.
Matt changed high schools as a sophomore to study art under Charles Andres at Berwick Academy. Mr. Andres studied under Harvey Dunn who was a part of group of illustrators called the Brandywine Artists which included N.C. Wyeth (father of Andrew, grandfather of Jamie), Maxfield Parrish, and the illustrator Howard Pyle. An impressive tradition within American art.
His work has a haunting quality, often an ominous undertone; images not terribly riddling or clever puzzles meant to be decoded, but symbols held in tension against one another. It is that frisson which energizes his canvases and draws the viewer in to contemplate their meaning.
His Cathedral series in particular evokes the power of symbol in an era in which symbols have become trivialized by the exploitation of advertising, politics, academia and criticism, and artists hostile to any and all important symbols in art and daily life.
I wonder when looking at some of the stuff that's being done now if it isn't a spiritual impasse. Especially a lot of what's shock art, the direct descendants of pop art, a lot of it is very nihilistic; trashing the ideas of the culture. It's not even iconoclastic; it's taking the artist's hatred of the bourgeois to the nth degree. What that seems to show is a real lack of hope, spirituality, and originality.
It is refreshing to see that his cathedrals, set in strange locations, resonate profoundly with the human need for both transcendence and reverence, and must affect any viewer who is not wholly committed to cynicism with a sense of the underlying mystery of being.
It's Andrade's seriousness and thoughtful quality which has helped him gain local attention in Malden not far from Boston, and also earned an inquiry from a gallery in Los Angeles. Since turning full time to painting two years ago, he is hopeful that the income he is earning from his canvases and giclee (zhee - clay) prints will be able to sustain him and his family.
I asked Matt about whether he considers himself a Christian artist who
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