Makoto Fujimura The Fine Art of Tension

God wants us to experience life deeply and art is one way to help us do that, says painter Makoto Fujimura. Spencer Burke drops in on Mako at his New York City art studio where he is working on what he calls a hybrid paintinga collision of heaven and earth. Mako describes how his painting explores what it might look and feel like for heaven to invade earth, just like weas earthly beingsare invaded by the heavenly, by God. Mako says we are trained NOT to see and experience things. His desire is to draw people to see more. Whats true on canvass is more true in life, and the tension or conflict we feel through artwhether paintings or plays or other mediais good. If we allow ourselves to feel this tension, and to know conflict or sorrow or joythen art can take us on an amazing adventure. The tension is that we all are consumers of culture because we live in this world. Sometimes the culture or the visual images are disturbing and we might want to divorce ourselves from our culture. Sometimes even the church urges us to cut ourselves off from this cultural conflict. But if we do, it is like we are going blind, and God doesnt want us to be blind. So, this is an important role for artto help us know and experience the reality of the world around us, and to wade into places weve never been before, living more deeply as spiritual beings where heaven can invade our earth.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• abstract
• art
• christianity
• church
• divine
• emergent
• emerging experimental
• god
• Makoto Fujimura
• podcast
• postmodern
• spencer burke
• tension
• Video