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Excommunication Excommunication: The Trickle Down Effect 16x12, 2002, oil on canvas. Available for Purchase Church discipline also affects the condemned's household in a myriad of ways. At a time when my identity was forming, I witnessed the excommunication of my father. In this intimate black and white painting I wanted the congregation to sustain a voyeuristic ambiance. The church is a carnival, with father and me as the spectacle--a sideshow for an otherwise dry and uneventful assemblage. The red hues collaborate with the boy's nudity to further emphasize humiliation. The tears varnish the pew grain, staining the church's tradition of charity with judgment, as personified by a mythical monster, with its toxic social and spiritual fangs. At the front of the church is the ruling patriarchal power, unidentified and in the shadow. This situation is precarious because there is no real antagonist, only turmoil. The Bishop is a disturbing figure, even though he means no menace, and his holy kiss beckons any with a repentant spirit. [Read about the Waterlander Mennonites and their issues with church discipline.] |
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 Painting published in Canadian Mennonite Vol.10, Number 10. "Disciplining the Church" (image on cover) May 15, 2006 and Wisconsin Review: University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Vol 40. Issue 2. Summer 2006 |
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The
painting Excommunication was based on this earlier composition.
The ink and duo-shade board were photocopied onto newsprint. A hand colored
version is in a private collection. |
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