Out of Somewhere - Jesus by Paul Taylor
Artist and long-time meditator Paul Taylor reflects on how the processes of art and meditation can both reveal, and nurture, the seed of Christ that is hidden within us.
“The face of Christ is completed in us”, Laurence Freeman writes in The Selfless Self, taking his inspiration from St Paul. As I began to work on the above painting, this came to have a profound resonance for me. The painting started out as a kind of playful experiment with new art materials and gradually turned into a picture of Jesus.
A friend who knows lots about art suggested I should try using black and white oil sticks. So I bought the oil sticks and a black canvas and started to play without any idea about what I was doing. I started out with the canvas on its side, landscape style, and I took my white oil stick and drew an oval shape which seemed to irradiate sparks and light.
In the centre of the oval was a black space so as I then took my black and white oil sticks and filled in this space, and rubbed the black and white together with my hands to create a grey zone in the midst of white sparkling oval. I then turned the canvas upright and saw, to my surprise, darker zones that looked a bit like the spaces where eyes live, so I darkened the spaces more and added eyebrows and made a nose and other facial features.
There was some semblance of Jesus emerging, which was interesting, but I didn’t want to milk this likeness, so I stopped and left my studio. This is a crucial moment in art-making as far as I am concerned - something I reflect on later in the article. The next day I returned, and I quite liked the face of Jesus that had arisen, and in particular, I liked the way he was almost gazing at me but at the same time was looking above me. He looked kind, loving and concerned.
The other thing that I became conscious of for the first time was that there seemed to be a person in Jesus’s chest. Its face looked a bit like that of an embryo. This was more than intriguing - I felt quite moved and somehow, I felt it was me.
I had been reading a book for several months that had had a major impact on me, Man – Temple of the Living God, by Roberto Pla. Pla’s central idea is that each of us has hidden in us the seed of Christ, and our whole life’s purpose is to bring the potential of this seed to full realisation. Somehow, I felt the painting was endorsing this and gently encouraging me to keep seeking in this direction.
I had read in The Inner Pilgrimage, by Laurence Freeman, that making art could be a way of prayer/meditation, but I wasn’t sure that I fully agreed because prayer and meditation and art felt quite different. But this experience definitely felt like it was drawing art and prayer/meditation together.
So I have been thinking more deeply about art making and meditation and what they have in common. The following is what I have tentatively come to realise.
Firstly, both art making and meditation take me into realms where I don’t feel in control. Both of them take me back to a sense of beginning.
Laurence Freeman writes:
There is a special grace in the beginning of anything, and it is almost as if the whole journey is contained in the beginning, in potential, like a seed contains everything that is going to grow. It is very condensed, very concentrated, very small but it is there.
Roberto Pla also says:
Grant us, Lord, to know everything
has been given to us from the beginning.
May we be happy with the happiness that we are.
May we know with the knowledge that we are.
May we love with the flame of love that that we are.
Secondly, both art making and prayer/meditation depend on us being present and fully engaged. In the case of art, it depends on not just being present as we touch the surface with a chosen material but also being present to what then arises from that touch. There seems to me to be often an element of surprise if I am fully present. The artwork itself seems to subtly communicate what I should do next.
Thirdly, both making art and meditation invite us to go past our superficial distractedness and discover our deeper self, “the hard disc of memory” as Laurence Freeman calls it. This contains, he says, “whatever we have thought or said or done or had done to us or think what we had done to us, everything is stored away as part of our very personality, our very individuality”. These too are distractions but by bringing them to the surface they become integrated in us as we both meditate or make art.
A kind of healing takes place it seems to me when we engage in either meditation or art making. Laurence says the danger at this stage of our journey is to become too interested in ourselves. Rather, there should be a gentle trust that doesn’t require self-analysis. We keep saying and listening to the mantra or making our marks on whatever surface we are applying our paint or ink to and see what those marks are saying back to us.
Finally, both art making and meditation can bring us to the brink of despair. In art making it is called creative block, the cousin of writers’ block. Nothing seems to be happening and you just feel like giving up. Laurence Freeman calls this brick wall experience in meditation “The sorrow of existence”. The author of the Cloud of Unknowing calls it “the naked awareness of self”.
Freeman goes on to say, “The sorrow of existence is the sorrow, the sadness we feel because the ego prevents us from feeling fully open, fully present”. He then continues with these very encouraging words:
By this time, we have learnt to say our mantra in faith, more simply. The distractions continue of course but we are now able to say it with less effort and more attention. We come to listen to it. Now we have learnt the discipline that will set us free from the ego. … so here at the brick wall, all we can do is to wait, be present and wait for grace.
It seems to me with art making, the grace comes often when we feel blocked. By stopping and leaving the work - trusting that the creative process is still going on but needs to be released from the ego’s need to create a “good work”, returning the next day it can feel like a totally new work, as it did in my painting of Jesus.
Finally, I would like to return to Laurence Freeman’s words from The Selfless Self that led me back to the Jesus painting.
There is a power working with us on this journey, the power of the spirit in us. ‘The mystery is this’, Saint Paul says, ‘Christ in us, the hope of a glory to come’. The glory is the radiance that we have in ourselves where we are whole. Christ is the proof of this fullness. The face of Christ is completed within us. That is the confidence of meditating in the Christian tradition.
This article is based on a talk Paul gave on 10 March 2025 at Benedict’s Well, an online outreach of the oblates of the World Community for Christian Meditation. You can see the talk, in which Paul also shares several more of his paintings, here: https://www.youtube.com/live/1fAK6n4W4xM?si=lNI6IigMFMCLJDTU
You can also see his paintings at his website here: paultaylorhawkesburyartist.com