Janine Dumont

Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

Testimony

This body of work functions as a visual testimony of my personal journey in faith. For the past year I have been consciously seeking God and becoming closer to Him, strengthening my faith as well as my relationship with Him. This series of artworks depicts the stages of letting go of my past self while becoming a whole new self.

I have blindly followed my religion for my whole life and am only now in the process of realizing the true meaning of faith. I believe that faith is not religion but rather faith is trusting in God with all your heart. I believe that faith in God comes with having a relationship with Him. I have only come to this realization in the past year.

My works are grounded in religious art, the kind of art one would see in cathedrals such as stained glass windows, relief sculptures of Jesus and Mary, as well as the Stations of the Cross. Since the beginning of this art making process, my focus has been on the accessibility of religious art and how it translates the Word of God into a visual format so that even the illiterate have access to it. In a similar way, I want my art to be accessible to all people. 

Religious art is beautiful and powerful in its own right, however, I would not regard my art as such, but rather art that reveals an interesting relationship between religion and spirituality. Instead of making art that conforms to the visual traditions of Catholic and Christian religious art, I have used parts of traditional Christian religious symbols in an atypical manner so that they no longer speak as strongly to religion but rather to the spiritual motivation behind the religion. My focus is on the spiritual experience rather than the religious experience, because I believe that the relationship one has with God is worth more than following religious doctrine.

I believe that God has called me to share my experience, to show others how my life has been transformed by Christ after I turned to Him. My hope is that my artworks will resonate with everyone on a spiritual level and that my message, God’s message, will be received by those with open hearts.