Faith Distracted was inspired by two sources: 1) The Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dali and 2) Man’s preoccupation with themselves. The original is a 15 x 22 watercolor created in December 2017.
The first inspiration, the 1951 work on Dali, was used specifically for its appearance of floating over the earth. I also chose this inspiration as a reflection of my Spanish roots. I chose to add some features that were not in Dali’s work: the blood dripping from Jesus’s hands and feet and the crown of thorns. The sign affixed to the top of the cross, which historians believed would have said “INRI”, loosely translated “here lies the king of the Jews” instead has the words “Why.”
The second inspiration of Faith Distracted was man’s preoccupation and selfishness. My thought was that the most appropriate modern translation for our selfishness was the “selfie.” A word that already is close to the word “selfish” a selfie is a photo one takes of oneself on their smartphone. I chose silhouette imagery of people (of all walks of life) on their smartphones specifically so we can see ourselves and relate to the painting.
The impression and the reminder is that this could be any of us. The pain of the painting is in the contrast of Jesus dying for our sins while we continue to take selfies and seek to look good ourselves.” To me, this is the crux of our faith, in that “while we were still sinners (with a distracted faith - added) He died for our us.” Romans 5:8