Excommunication: The Trickle Down Effect Painting

https://youtu.be/dmx6qUHwIBw?si=r7L4srZ5hY10MJd9 Church discipline also affects the condemned's household in a myriad of ways. At a time when my identity was forming, I witnessed the excommunication of my father. In this intimate black and white painting I wanted the congregation to sustain a voyeuristic ambiance. The church is a carnival, with father and me as the spectacle--a sideshow for an otherwise dry and uneventful assemblage. The red hues collaborate with the boy's nudity to further emphasize humiliation. The tears varnish the pew grain, staining the church's tradition of charity with judgment, as personified by a mythical monster, with its toxic social and spiritual fangs. At the front of the church is the ruling patriarchal power, unidentified and in the shadow. This situation is precarious because there is no real antagonist, only turmoil. The Bishop is a disturbing figure, even though he means no menace, and his holy kiss beckons any with a repentant spirit. [Read about the Waterlander Mennonites and their issues with church discipline.]