Artist's Statement: "The pursuit of this work is to have humanity coexist with the Divine in one relationship. My practice is a personal attempt to investigate concepts and ideas that explore this relationship. The conversations are complex, honest, and often change multiple times in a single image. This body of work uses my own private struggles, hopes, and desires, which, through painting, allows me to culturally place my beliefs and myself. Painting is a medium that has a spiritual and religious history. I am interested in the religious works of Medieval, Baroque, and Renaissance artists and the conceptual ideas of the Abstract Expressionists. My philosophy is to meaningfully appropriate and incorporate my historical influences, thus, these paintings are a rendition of representational and abstract subjects. The figure provides a body language for a spiritual state. I rely heavily on the historical associations of the figure in art to guide the emotional narrative. The spaces are organic elements from nature collaged to construct an abstract environment. A growing tree, moving water, or changing light all exist both independent of and in relationship to man's influence. This is why I have chosen them as a vehicle into a spiritual world. It is my objective to experience faith in the act of painting and to provoke curiosity and lasting engagement within others and myself about aspects of spirituality. I am not comparing and contrasting spirituality with humanity nor condemning one or the other. Rather, I am looking for ways to represent them both in a painting referring to the larger narrative of human experience." -Lucas Moneypenny