Artist Profile

Artist’s Statement

These works could be deciphered through the word ‘sanctum’, or the idea of a
sacred place to worship.
Since 2020, our churches have experienced lockdowns and closed doors, which has disrupted the usual ways of meeting and worship. Our actions of worship have transitioned and, in some ways, become deeper and more personal. In a way, it has felt like a quiet season indoors, isolated and some what insular. We’ve experienced a transition in our congregations, in the way we worship and how we remain together as a spiritual whānau.
It has been different.
These artworks reflect ideas about ‘the temple’ and places or spaces of worship. A physical temple, our bodies as a temple and God’s temple represented as a spiritual space. During our time of rāhui, our worship and our temples have changed or been reframed but certain aspects remain the same. God is still powerful in our instability and through the anomalous change that has been imposed upon our lives.

Biography

Rebecca Barclay-Clist is an artist and an art educator based in lower Northland, Aotearoa, and has been involved in the arts for 25 years. In particular, her creative practice examines the spiritual world within a societal context - critically engaging the artist as a voice of faith. Her work seeks to directly address the existence and perception of God within the context of our own existence, with a quiet voice of personal truth that manifests through a range of wet and dry media. Symbolism and metaphor are employed, but the intention is that the viewer may go beyond the limitations of these and search for a deeper or higher truth.