Faith in Painting - The Works of Ben Cowan
The inspiration, life events, and leaves that go into the making of Ben Cowan's studio practice
Faith has long been a battleground over which our culture and politics are forged. Americans in particular are in the midst of a “come to Jesus” moment as we see the Conservative Christian Right concoct all sorts of reasons why the separation of church and state must be ignored in service of a Protestant God. However as they work now to strip the government, and criminalize vulnerable communities, it’s fair to wonder if they are following Heaven’s blueprints. How does anyone truly know when they are receiving the good word at all, regardless of what the Prosperity Gospel tells us? This question is enough to occupy any believer with an open heart, but the cloistered nature of many Evangelical communities in this country exists to quell any dissonance.
Luckily the artist Ben Cowan is one open hearted devotionalist who is undeterred by the philosophical underpinnings of how belief functions. Painting as a daily practice has become an indispensable aspect of his journey, but he is also guided by intellectual engagement with the work of psychological anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann. In her book, How God Becomes Real, the author explores the concept of Paracosm which is briefly summarized in her essay “T.M. Luhrmann on Small Acts of Real-Making”:
“If religion is a narrative that shifts attention away from the ordinary, detail is the narrative mechanism that makes this shifting of attention possible. The successful narrative creates a paracosm—a private-but-shared imagined world sufficiently rich in detail that people become engaged and can return to the stories again and again, exploring them from different angles, reliving different moments, recasting them as if they were there, even adding new chapters to the story. The narratives also need to set out rules about who shares the paracosm, how to know when gods and spirits are present, and how they interact.
Talent and training—what someone does and what they bring to what they do—make these stories more vivid and increase the chance that people will experience the invisible other in sensory ways. People who are able to become absorbed in what they imagine are more likely to experience an invisible other more vividly. People who practice being absorbed in what they imagine in prayer or ritual are also more likely to experience that invisible other more vividly. Absorption blurs the boundary between the inner world and the outer world, which makes it easier for people to experience an invisible other as present in a way they feel with their senses.”
For Cowan, the concept of Paracosm became a generative prompt. While pouring over art books that feature a breadth of Christian imagery, the artist would use variously shaped vignettes to crop details of each image. This reframing served to illuminate the building blocks of the Paracosm we experience as religion, as well as expand its purview to humble plant life that is not generally associated with the canonized symbol set. Within sturdy frames that Cowan makes himself from molds, windows that evoke the negative space of gothic architecture serve to highlight the blessing hand of Christ or the tearful eye of Mary, but also a delicately twisted dry leaf or sun dappled flower. The even treatment of these depictions, made with care that comes from years of studying crafting techniques, end up reorganizing the hierarchy of these images. The leaf becomes imbued with a spiritual air just as the hand of Christ is made earthly. Radiating colors within the field of the frame give an ethereal quality to the composition as well, as if the images held within are actually apertures which open within a void to reveal the partial subjects as clues to a greater meaning.
Most working artists today including Cowan hold a degree from an arts institution, but few in this demographic can also claim to have trained in ministry for a non-denominational charismatic evangelical church in their formative years. Ben Cowan’s experience in this milieu began as an exciting adventure with a relatively fringe culture. Exorcisms, speaking in tongues, and being overtaken by spirit were all regular occurrences in this community, and Cowan initially harbored hopes of knowing firsthand what it felt like to levitate and practice teleportation. Over time, he received the opportunity to “plant” a new church in Brooklyn where his responsibilities to the community grew. It was at some point during the development of this plant that doubt began to set in. What was once felt to be an exhilarating experience of faith and fervor, all of a sudden became a source of overwhelm and trauma. Cowan decided at this moment to step away from the church where he had risen to prayer ministry lead because of an increasing awareness that some connection to God had been lost. In the artist’s words, “I was coming to terms with the feeling that the Jesus I knew was dead, and I had killed him. I needed to get rid of everything and then start bringing things back to see what is beneficial for me. I started painting the Dear God paintings as a way for me to grieve this loss.” The Dear God paintings generally depict a more somber side of iconography with depictions such as Adam and Eve quoted from a Tommaso Masolino Da Panicale painting, obscured by ornamental iron leaves, and Christ’s body quoted from Poussin paired with a curled dead leaf. Each figure is paired with an object that becomes associated by proximity, though there remains a feeling of disjointedness. A framing device is also utilized in these compositions, but interestingly this effect is achieved through trompe l'oeil which heightens the sense of being confronted with illusions. Something that was once there, had been proven ephemeral yet is still depicted, with this complex visual metaphor standing in for equally complex grief.
As a child, Ben Cowan grew up in a Midwestern Evangelical household where he was taught that having images of a religious nature around could invite a Satanic presence into your life. His parents were once gifted a small Greek Orthodox icon that was framed in a delicate silver filigree frame that his father demanded be removed from their house for this reason. The taboo of the object was both fascinating and frightening for Cowan who instead decided to squirrel it away, and to use the frame to house other images as well. Coming from this background, Cowan sees the process of looking critically at religious depictions and playing with their representation in his own work as a “saucy” endeavor. Though his paintings could be viewed as blasphemous by some, the continual practice of relating to this heritage has become a bridge to a new relationship to God and the church.
Joining Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Brooklyn was an event that marked a renewal of faith for Cowan. Here was an environment that embraced creativity through panel discussions, ambient concerts, folk festivals, and more. Their focus on maintaining the grandeur of their original architecture and tradition combined with a progressive view on politics and the diverse identities of church members was a welcome change. It was here that Cowan was also invited to create an absolutely stunning installation of paintings that represent the Stations of the Cross through his recurring symbol of a leaf, this time subtly falling down the length of an intersected crimson pinstripe. In this installation, the gradation of the surrounding color gives an impression of a vibrant field of light that exists on the other side of the window of each painting surface. This portal effect is heightened by Cowan’s expert rendering skills in creating another frame within the frame of each piece, mimicking the ornate architecture of the church interior with a faux wood effect. While each piece is simple in concept, viewing the works together in this context brings forth a feeling of immersion as they are spread around the place of worship.
During the making of this Stations installation, Cowan had a realization that the paintings he was making with an illusion of motion were exhibiting the characteristics of animation stills, and when he edited them together in Photoshop, clicking through the layers would give the paintings life.
From this discovery, he began to smooth out the process and make the effect more intentional. This experimentation gave way to the Circumambulation series. Circumambulation is a practice that is shared across many faiths, consisting of the simple act of walking around a holy object, location, or in some cases a person engaged in ritual in order to engage in meditation or worship with the central occupant. From Muslims circling the Kaaba, to Catholic priests circling their altars with a thurible, to the passages of Hindu temples, to the way a Jewish bride will circle her husband, this act of walking the circle has a strong resonance with our shared humanity. The artist first encountered this practice while visiting the Buddha Stupa of Kathmandu, experiencing a form of worship that was far from the rituals he grew up with. For Cowan the cycling animations of tumbling plant life became an homage to this shared concept. Accessing the animation in a digital format has also become a stand-in for the afterlife, as the paintings can be interacted with in a physical space, as they are, then they can live a second life as a fleeting illusion of dance. Making an inanimate object come to life has long been a resonant symbol for the power of creation and the fleeting nature of life that flows through us all. And Cowan’s installations are a reminder of this poetic mystery that is the gift of life.
While making art can appear to be a solitary endeavor, Ben Cowan has found a way to integrate his work into his journey through the world of spirituality. His life is evidence that people have great potential to expand their compassion through an ever changing relationship to God. In a time where faith has been weaponized, this life of deep reflection is more important than ever. There is always time to reassess our relationship to worship, and to actively seek a genuine connection even if it goes outside of the practices that your community is normalizing. His paintings stand as a testament to a life of contemplation and of engagement, and a welcoming gesture to question the building blocks of our own Paracosm.