Religious Art

In this secular age in the west it's unusual for artists to engage in religious painting. Having studied stained glass at the London  Central School it seemed that was a  possible means of earning a living when I returned to Australia in 1963. However at the time such an enterprise proved to be outside the general artistic activity then current in Australia. This led me to take an interest in religious paintings . The Blake Prize for Religious Art had been established by the Commonwealth Bank in 1951 thus offering a possible exposure for religious subject matter. Over the years artists of Christian, agnostic and atheistic belief  have all exhibited so there did not appear to any  reason why strong religious conviction was a prior requisite. In recent years all sorts of paintings have been include often with little or no spiritual content.




"Calling of the Apostles"
acrylic on board     6ft.x 4ft.
Painting by Peter Kreet    



"Crown of Thorns"
acrylic on board 6ft. x 4ft.
Peter Kreet 1968.

"The Calling of the Apostle" was exhibited in the 1967 exhibition and deals with the conflict between spiritual belief and secularism. The subject matter deals with the apostles Peter, James and John returning empty handed after their fishing trip. Christ instructs them to go further out and recast the net resulting in the enclosure of so many fish the boat starts to sink. At the time I was attempting to amalgamate figurative and abstract elements into the same work. In this painting the apostles and Christ symbolise the spiritual side of human kind , while the abstracted shape of the Sydney Harbour stands for the secular and commercial aspects of life.

Later I encluded nails into the works to take the concept of suffering a step further. Eventually I abanded the religious theme altogether and developed a series of nail works. The reference point for much of these painting were the demolition sites in Sydney at the time.