Spiritual works that don’t flinch from taboo themes

Rodney Pople’s painting is meant to be provocative. A headless Roman Catholic cardinal towers over the interior of one of Venice’s baroque churches, surrounded by images of the Virgin Mary’s innocence.

But in the cardinal’s lap - echoing the classic pieta pose of the crucified Messiah - is an altar boy, his genitals partly exposed as he offers his own innocence to the figure of religious authority.

Yes, it’s Blake prize time again. Australia’s foremost award ‘‘for contemporary religious and spiritual art’’ is in its 59th year and worth $20,000 to the 2010 winner. And Pople, a veteran painter, sculptor and photographer, is this year’s main talking point.

His mixed media work - part photomontage, part painting - is based on photographs Pople took of the interiors of San Zaccaria Church in Venice. But the completed work is prompted by the controversy about paedophilia within the Catholic Church.

‘‘Yes, of course it is,’’ Pople said. ‘‘But I’d like to think my painting cuts through to deeper stuff. What the Catholic Church is going through now is unprecedented. But in a sense it has just been discovered.

‘‘In reality, [sexual abuse] has been going on for centuries. My painting is saying, ‘They think they can get away with it, that they are above the civil law.’ I found that intriguing.

‘‘It is not politically correct art, but thank God for that. Artists have a right, a duty, to be doing a bit of leading, because our politicians never will.’’  Read Article

By Steve Meacham