Communion, 36" x 36", December 2004, Acrylic on canvas, Not for sale

Of all the paintings I've created, this is the one about which I am most proud and the one which I'm sure will attract the most opprobrium.

Christians are used to thinking of bread and wine as Flesh and Blood and between the many branches of the Christian tradition there are many ways of understanding the receiving of - or participation in - the Act of Communion. Some believe that wine and bread are only symbols; others believe that the wine and bread are translated into blood and flesh; while yet others believe that the wine and bread physically become that part of God which was given at The Last Supper.

In this painting, I am attempting to depict the feeling of what it is like to partake in the Act of Communion. Communion is first and foremast a spiritual act in which we are called upon to acknowledge our part in our wider humanity, our relationship to God and to our community and in which we examine our purpose for being as we remember. It is a moment for awakening to a dream of something greater than ourselves. There is the moment of hesitation when we surrender notions of self.

Blood is also symbolic of love and of sacrifice. The skin of the depicted woman is deliberately shifted toward a death-like tone (as in Lazarene below which has tones suggesting the return to life) to suggest complete acceptance, the abandoning of everything known. Key to the Act of Communion is the sense in which we give to others, to God and to life itself. Even if we are repulsed by the sight of blood - especially our own - our fascination of blood and the life it perpetuates continues through many aspects of our lives. Many religions have regulations on how we must treat blood. Where there are regulations, we observe that the restrictions most severely affect women and their bodies attempting an impossible divide between those who nature has given the power to produce life and the signs of vitality. Beyond any religious reference in this painting, a woman is at the moment of reconcilition between herself and her own body.

This painting (and Lazarene) are the paintings which depict the interior life of the spiritual person: dreams, meditation, contemplation and the sensuality of actually living.