OFFERINGS

Offerings – is an investigation into religious identification thru the subject matter of portraiture. My interest lies with the contemporary paradox of religious reason and role playing and its true uses today, when it again seems to be at a zeitgeist. I have cited elements as varied as Hollywood actors (playing the role of priests), contemporary infamous extremist manifestations and enlarged obscure historical portraits like those of ‘Padre Pio’ and ‘Joseph’, as well as imagined and re-imagined portrayals, in the form of ‘John Wayne’ and ‘The Crusader’

Below are more details about individual works.

The 'Actor’ portraits questions validity of values in religions and their representatives and a comment on the reality of representation and actuality of systems of belief. Specific examples of this are Portraits of actors ‘Bela Lugosi’ playing Christ, and ‘Marcello Mastroianni’ as a priest in the film Massacre in Rome, ‘Robert Mitchum’ as the Preacher from The Night of the Hunter, and ‘Bing Crosby’ from The Bell’s of St. Mary’s.

‘Padre Pio’ and ‘Joseph’ are about deciphering the image or identity of the subjects and placing them within a context which is ambiguous . Their engrossed size draws on papallels of religious representation of saints and holy people often created on a vast scale. Padre Pio parhaps a reminder of someone from the Islamic faith, flying wholeheartedly in the face of his true identity as a catholic religious saint. Joseph (Ratzinger) is in his German military uniform as a boy age 14.

‘Muhammad’ is based on the dichotomy of the image as accessible and forbidden.
The duality in the work is completely tied in with the title of the work.
It has been purported that in certain sectors of the Islamic world that to create or portray the image of Muhammad is an insult. The second meaning of the work is the actual person it is a portrayal of; that of Muhammad Atta one of the 9/11 hijackers as a younger man. I am fascinated that to draw a portrait of such a man would seem to some almost a heinous act. So it does tie in with the first meaning of the work that to insult someone.
Another work - ‘John Wayne’ uses the built in filter of graphical interpretation. This poster art interpretation allows me to draw down the supposed hierarchy of religious type and ground it in a medium that is more associated with advertising or the commonplace.

Other work will include a double spread comic book strip called ’The Crusader’ – episode 1 ‘Bad Communion’. This is a tongue in cheek approach to a fictional story of the murder of the congregation thru the giving out of poisoned communion bread by the priest, a metaphorical tale on the conceit of religion and a tale in our times on dying in the name of religion.

Other works are in the pipeline for this series including a 60’s interior of a popes’ car and a re-imagined exterior of the ‘actual’ house from the movie The Exorcist.

Ian Healy
January 2008