glory

This morning I went to a small exhibition in town, entitled 'Glory'.

I found out about the exhibition on the Showroom cinema's regular email. I didn't know who was putting on the exhibition, or who was exhibiting, but was intrigued, so went along anyway.

The participating artists had simply been given that one word as their brief. It turned out that a considerable number of the artists involved were evidently influenced by a Christian understanding of the word glory, with a few quoting Biblical texts in the comments accompanying some of the pictures....

Psalm 130:6 "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen waiting for the morning, more than watchmen waiting for the morning" accompanied a couple of paintings of women waiting for glory.

2 Corinthians 3:18 "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" accompanied a painting of a face being uncovered.

One of my favourite paintings (which was too dark to photograph well with my mobile phone) was accompanied by the following words:

"For me true glory is reflected in the small, the humble and the seemingly insignificant, the smouldering wick that is not snuffed out, the saviour kneeling down to wash his friends feet. This world that gives glory to and exalts the rich, the powerful and the glamorous so often misses the small thing, the faint glimmer of light. We don’t realise it is there each moment of the day in the unlikeliest of places."

Richard Stott (the artist)

Another piece I liked was made up of lots of small photographs of incredibly mundane things, which when put together created this image:



For me it resonates with the comment by Richard Stott, that there is glory in the small, mundane things, that there is glory in everyone who is created in the image of God, that is, all of us. I guess this also ties into the 2 Corinthians 3:18 passage as well.

On the same theme but with a different take was this image:



It was created by someone who's sister had been serving overseas in the armed forces. She descibed how she struggled with idea of saying that soldiers 'died for their country', when in fact they had been 'killed'.

(Apologies for the quality of the photos. When taking the photos I was trying to avoid any glare from the lighting in the gallery, as well as the hideous reflections from the windows.)