Proof
Proof, Tim Lowly © 1998, 35" x 24", tempera on panel. Private collection Michigan.
This is another of the paintings with a vertical horizontal format that I have been posting this week. Part of what interests me at the moment is the narrative character of these paintings. The protagonist of these paintings–and the principle subject of much of my work–is my daughter Temma. Significantly Temma is profoundly disabled and has little agency.
This painting was prompted by the first time I heard my wife Sherrie preach. She was working as a counselor at that time and the pastor of the church we were attending invited her to preach. That first sermon was related to the text of "doubting" Thomas, the disciple of Jesus who said he would only believe Jesus had risen from the dead if had proof: that is, if he could put his hand in Jesus' side where there was a wound from a centurion's spear. Here Temma's hand hangs over the edge of a crypt-like space. A space where–perhaps–we (the viewer of the painting) implicitly reside. Incidentally that space is a nod to the similar space in the Bellini painting of the (dead?) Christ standing in a tomb that you can see if you swipe.
At the top of the painting are four children whose stances suggest that they are perhaps flying kites. But there are no kites to be seen in the sky. However, if you swipe you can see that a “Bahng-Pae”( Korean for 'shield') kite is lying on the ground behind Temma’s head. It’s state suggests that it has more to do with the earth than the sky.
Proof
Proof, Tim Lowly © 1998, 35" x 24", tempera on panel. Private collection Michigan.
This is another of the paintings with a vertical horizontal format that I have been posting this week. Part of what interests me at the moment is the narrative character of these paintings. The protagonist of these paintings–and the principle subject of much of my work–is my daughter Temma. Significantly Temma is profoundly disabled and has little agency.
This painting was prompted by the first time I heard my wife Sherrie preach. She was working as a counselor at that time and the pastor of the church we were attending invited her to preach. That first sermon was related to the text of "doubting" Thomas, the disciple of Jesus who said he would only believe Jesus had risen from the dead if had proof: that is, if he could put his hand in Jesus' side where there was a wound from a centurion's spear. Here Temma's hand hangs over the edge of a crypt-like space. A space where–perhaps–we (the viewer of the painting) implicitly reside. Incidentally that space is a nod to the similar space in the Bellini painting of the (dead?) Christ standing in a tomb that you can see if you swipe.
At the top of the painting are four children whose stances suggest that they are perhaps flying kites. But there are no kites to be seen in the sky. However, if you swipe you can see that a “Bahng-Pae”( Korean for 'shield') kite is lying on the ground behind Temma’s head. It’s state suggests that it has more to do with the earth than the sky.