This Week’s Painting

The Man with the Unclean Spirit, KPB Stevens, gouache on paper, 2021

Continuing with the motif of abstract boxes of color to signify the balance between order and chaos, I wanted the figure of the man with the unclean spirit to be invaded in places by these boxes. That struggle between chaos and order is so powerful within us when we enter spirit-filled states (what John Dominick Crossan calls “trance states,” including ecstasy, disassociation, and altered states of consciousness in that definition). If we enter these states without the guidance and help of our friends, our community, or a sense of God’s love for us, they might justifiably be called unclean. Our encounter with the spirit might fall too far into chaos.

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