Holy Icon

"Christ of Gaza: Love and Truth Amidst Fragmentation", acrylic on canvas panel, Bishop Maxim, 2025

Jagged multicolored brush strokes express this image of Christ, reminiscent of the famous icon of St Catherine’s monastery, with one compassionate eye and one of stark reality. Together, Love and Truth are expressed through the multiple overtones of a culture at war with itself and a population of Christians diminishing in the Holy Land as Christ is gradually outcast and eliminated from the place of his birth. Being all things for all people and suffering all manner of things, the colors of the painting reflect both a hopeful synergy while the brush strokes embody the chaotic pain of ruptures and fragmentation that are present. In this way the artist manages to make the medium of the paint itself congruent with the character of the eyes of Christ, bearing the pain of Man, while remaining the Only Lover of Humankind Whose Truth is not an excuse for violence and revenge, but an eternal  invitation to discover the Love that renders it salvific.