I wrote this reflection on rejection, resurrection, and Vincent Van Gogh for Mockingbird.
“As I approached the first room of the exhibit, I wondered how they could make Van Gogh more “alive” than he already is. He is perhaps the most alive of any painter I know. The Olive Trees pulse at the edges of their frame every time I see them at the MoMA, New York City. But as I watched the exhibit’s narrative unfold – an arrangement currently on tour in Warsaw – I realized that it wasn’t only the art that was resurrected there. The experience seemed to exist as a reminder that we, too, could be resurrected. As I wandered between the projected light beams and the wall, the paintings were literally placed onto me, turning myself and other unsuspecting participants into image-bearers in a vaguely biblical sense.”