Limerick, Ireland
George Bolster, Religion Becoming Myth, 2004, sycamore, imboia and walnut, burr veneers on wood, acrylic and oil paint on canvas, gold-plated steel, feather and ribbon, 109 x 114 cm

George Bolster

b. 1972, Ireland

Religion Becoming Myth is a two-sided sculpture based on a painting by the baroque artist Gerrit van Honthorst. The painting depicts Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of hopeless cases [sic]. Being an atheist, this artist sees himself as one of this saint’s charges. On one side is the traditional representation – the gold-plated arrows spilling red ribbons of blood that appear to tether the piece to the ground. On the other side there is the mortal representation of the human body in decay. The healthy blood becomes a putrefied green; the skin becomes a fungus. On the mortal side, a genetically modified plant (part-plant, part-insect) lunges towards the figure in a threatening manner, representing the shift from believing in God to playing God. While deconstructing the narrative of the original painting, it attempts to utilise allegory and show it as a direct predecessor of conceptual language. It is a requiem for the death of religious painting and religion as a subject in the mainstream of contemporary art.

The piece is made from wood veneers, traditionally regarded as craft rather than a high-art medium. It questions the definitions of either category. He uses woods that supply a close replication of the skin and the chiaroscuro in the painting so that it emulates the painted surface. Only on closer inspection does the wood grain become apparent. In his work he seeks to deconstruct the narrative and representation of historical religious subjects in painting, to address the power of visual culture as an important promotional tool of Idealism. He endeavours to highlight the cyclical aspect of a culture in decline superseded by another culture.

— John Archibald

(Text: OPEN e v + a catalogue, 2005)

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