In Memory of Me
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Christian Brother Artist Kenneth Chapman, CFC, offers Teilhardian images for the National Eucharistic Congress Art Exhibition
Paintings of Christian Brother artist Kenneth Chapman, CFC, have been selected for the Eucharistic Congress Art Exhibition, In Memory of Me. The works, from different moments of a lifelong engagement in contemplative thought and artistic expression, offer Eucharist images present in recent writings of Pope Francis and influenced by insights from the Jesuit paleontologist and mystic, Teilhard De Chardin, S.J.
YOUR HEAVENLY WORD CAME DOWN - 24 x 18 -Metallic acrylics on canvas
Your heavens above rain down my righteousness, let the clouds shower it down. Isaiah 45,8
A golden aurora emanating from a white host-like center radiates light and energy. Silver streams a shower of grace.
Isaiah perceives and proclaims the ongoing infusion of the Divine in creation. Here the artist reproduces, in silver and gold, images coming from space exploration and suggested in Teilhard’s cosmic vision.
...Yes, the human layer of the earth is wholly and continuously under the organizing influx of the incarnate Christ. -- THE DIVINE MILIEU, pg. 97, part I section 2, THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST AND THE GREAT COMMUNION.
LAST SUPPER - 18 x 36 - Acrylic on Canvas
Jesus shares with his twelve friends: How I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with you. Luke 22:15
Light emanates from a cruciform Christ radiating brilliance and dimension to those at table. While their varied clothing suggests a grounding in the physical event, their heads proclaim a transformative reality.
No one had earned a place at that Supper. All had been invited. Or better said: all had been drawn there by the burning desire that Jesus had to eat that Passover with them. He knows that he is the Lamb of the Passover meal; he knows that he is the Passover. -- DESIDERIO DESIDERAVI, Pope Francis, June, 2022
EUCHARIST - 19.5 x 19.5 - Metallic acrylics on canvas
Golden rays emanate from Jesus reaching out to each of the twelve at table with him. The glow of his body illuminates the faces and the raised arms of the apostles. All become one, a precious jewel.
In the Eucharist all become one. Participation in the priestly action of Christ ordains a priestly people.
...in action I adhere to the creative power of God; I coincide with it; I become not only its instrument but its living extension.
...Originally we had fellowship with God in the simple common exercise of wills; but now we unite ourselves with him in the shared love of the end for which we are working; and the crowning marvel is that, with the possession of this end, we have the utter joy of discovering his presence once again. -- THE DIVINE MILIEU, pg. 26-27 – part I, section 4, COMMUNION THROUGH ACTION
TRINITY - 36x18 - Acrylic on Canvas
In colors of wine and water, the body of Jesus reveals a luminous host like circle, a representation of divinity, not having beginning or end. In the lower part of the presentation, the people of God with arms raised in praise are incorporated by the Holy Spirit into the fullness of the Godhead. The artist anticipates the coming together, the convergence of all creation in Christ, the Alpha and the Omega.
...Even children are taught that, throughout the history of the world, there is only one Mass and one Communion.
...from the beginning of the Messianic preparation, up till the Parousia, passing through the historic manifestation of Jesus and the phases of growth of his Church, a single event has been developing in the world: the Incarnation, realized, in each individual, through the Eucharist.
...who can tell where the diffusion of Christ, with the influence of grace, stops, as it spreads outward from the faithful at the heart of the human family?
-- THE DIVINE MILIEU, pg. 96, part III section 2 THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST AND THE GREAT COMMUNION.
The collection for the exhibit, selected from six hundred fifty entries, is being gathered at St. Edmunds Sacred Art Institute on Enders Island, Mystic CT. The works will be shown at one or more of the following locations:
- St Edmunds Sacred Art Institute - April 20 - May 5th
- Bless Michael McGivney Center - May 11 - August 25
- National Eucharistic Congress - Indianapolis July 17 - 21
Brother Chapman’s story is posted on the website: www.cbartfoundation.art. The influence of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on the artist’s works was evident in his Catholic University master’s thesis on the days of creation. On large canvases his dynamically sculptured paintings portray moments in an evolutionary process with cosmic dimensions. He found inspirations in the images arriving from the space exploration of the 60’s and 70’s.
His assignments as a member of the Congregation of Christian Brothers brought him to Chicago and later to Native American missions in Arizona. On returning to his alma mater, Iona University, as Artist in Residence, he delighted in the zeitgeist created on campus by such Teilhard and Thomas Berry scholars and activists as Kathleen Deignan, CND, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Robert Novak, CFC, and Kevin Cawley, CFC.
Many of his works are on display at Iona University and are occasionally featured in exhibits at the Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery of the JoAnn Mazzella Murphy Arts Center on North Avenue, New Rochelle, NY. Other clusters of his works are found in Jerusalem, Australia, the Marino Institute at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, St. Joseph’s Seminary at Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York, and Brother Rice High School in Chicago. His art has frequently been reproduced by the Tipografia Vaticana for Concerts and Interreligious events at the St. Paul VI Papal Audience Hall in Vatican City.
The art department of St. Xavier’s University of Chicago, Illinois, is planning a major showing of Chapman originals in the Spring of 2025.
Brother is now retired and in residence at St. Joseph’s Care Center in New Rochelle, NY.
Patrick Sean Moffett, CFC
psmoffettcfc@gmail.com
March, 2024