Unsettling iconography

Canadian artist Amanda Le Blanc is creating a series of hyper-realistic watercolour images of crucified birds, embodying the hurt church has caused. “Even though it is immediately very jarring and visceral, what can come out of the conversations around these pieces can be very hopeful,” she said. Le Blanc graduated Redeemer University as an art major in 2014 and still lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She recently witnessed church hurt unfold in her home church of The Meeting House as ex-pastor Bruxy Cavey faced criminal charges of sexual abuse. Le Blanc, who processes these experiences through her art, intends these pieces to be exhibited in churches, both for people who have been hurt and for people who have perpetuated the hurt. “Both are equally important,” she said in an interview with Christian Courier. We need spaces for both of those conversations.”

Le Blanc remembers the charismatic church of her youth, which shut down uncomfortable conversations. “There’s this resistance to talk about things that were difficult. The only things of God are the good things.” That resistance often bleeds into attitudes towards art.

Rainbows and halos

“I grew up with this idea of Christian art being a cross with the Bible verse behind it, with rainbows and sunshine. . . The church hasn’t historically had a great place for artists in contemporary culture,” Le Blanc commented. Being mentored by a Christian art professor at Redeemer was pivotal. “I realized how important it was to me and later, how helpful it could be for other people, to allow myself to really dive into this.”

Le Blanc resists the limiting label of “Christian art.” This series, she says, is art created for the church, but she has other art “that wouldn’t necessarily be good to show in a church because of where the church is right now.”

In this series, Le Blanc uses Christian symbolism – halo and nimbus – as visual shorthand. “The halo or nimbus is used as a marker of divine presence or connection with God. So many people outside of the church or inside of the church are made to feel that they don’t get to have that. So I intentionally give them that place.”

Each halo is styled off the aesthetic of the bird. The tern, as a water bird, has a halo that is reminiscent of a compass, with spikes turning inward. “That one is about the way that your faith can end up hurting you. The way that you’re taught to be . . . can end up trapping you in a place where you can’t move.”

‘Don’t underestimate a bird!’

A heron, a tern and a barn swallow make up the first three paintings in her series. “I love birds. They’re these very delicate but very self-sufficient and sometimes dangerous things. That’s a dissonance I found interesting.”

The barn swallow is the central piece, inspired by the Stations of the Cross. “It got me thinking, who else have we crucified in this way?” For this series, Le Blanc deep-dived images of birds dying in “horrible ways” to build a new visual language. Le Blanc shuddered talking about bot flies – maggots that grow under the skin from mosquito-laid eggs – “you have to go to uncomfortable places visually.”

Le Blanc painted the heron (“cancelled”) after allegations came out against Bruxy Cavey. “I still feel a lot of anger about what happened to the people who were mistreated, abused,” she said. All of the birds in the series have half-opened beaks. Le Blanc spoke of how the church can deny people their ability to speak about what has happened. Still, Le Blanc refuses to cast anyone as a monster: “Doing that piece, I had to remind myself to think of this person [who I’m angry at] as a person who is still an image bearer of God despite the ways that they’ve distorted that image.”

Sharing the work

The conversations around these pieces can be distressing: “You want to challenge people but you don’t want to hurt people; there’s this tension.” For this reason, Le Blanc offers to speak at churches where these pieces are installed, to prepare people for what they’re about to see.

Le Blanc needs to step away from the series routinely herself: “There are times when I can’t work on it because it’s emotionally taxing.” She relies on a supportive community who can challenge her and also ground her.

Despite the discomfort, attending to these pieces can be a hopeful journey. “If you look at something and you feel like something in the work is empathizing with something that you’ve been feeling, then you move from a place of isolation to community immediately. There’s hope in the community that the art can create and hope in the willingness to challenge the things that we’ve just accepted.”

Art & faith deconstruction

By Angela Reitsma Bick

Le Blanc’s first experience with Christianity was the charismatic church her foster family attended. Attending Redeemer University was eye-opening – “the faith I grew up with,” she said, “started rubbing up against things I was encountering. I had to decide if the things I believed were actually helpful to me or other people.”

“The work I’ve done recently,” she said, is a way of processing “the different ways the church has caused hurt.” In 2021, she and her husband were attending the Meeting House when Cavey was arrested.

Faith deconstruction is “not always about theology,” she said, “but also the behavior of Christians.”

“I still feel a lot of anger about what happened,” Le Blanc added, “for the people who were mistreated and abused. But Bruxy Cavey is still a person. We put him there. There’s fault on both sides. When someone in a position of power does something, but you gave them that power and endorsed them and never questioned their motives . . . We have all looked the other way.”

When I asked where she finds hope, Le Blanc said “in the interaction. In the willingness to challenge ourselves with things we’ve accepted as fine. And in the conversations art can start. At one of my first solo exhibitions – people came up and talked to me about their lives.”

Le Blanc and her husband are deciding, in conjunction with their smaller Meeting House “home church” group, between local church options.