JesusWalks - Sarah Robinson

Continuing from yesterday, the first JesusWalks artist I met was Sarah Robinson and her work is Reflection or Disco Ball Jesus. Sarah was working as one of the volunteer guides/security in Hyde Park for the four JesusWalks statues there. She saw me taking photos of her work and we started talking. We ended up talking for a few hours about her work and art in general.

This was Sarah’s first mosaic and to say it was a large undertaking is an understatement. The statue was completed in her kitchen as the garage was too cold to work in for the many, many hours it took to glue the numerous mirror pieces on the statute.

Reflection reflected in Sarah's glasses.Reflection was placed in a prime location as part of WYD, in front of St. Mary's Cathedral and near one of the many Official Merchandise Tents. As a side note, the consumerism aspect of the WYD scared me.

The only coloured glass in the statue is the stigmata, the heart and the flames above the heart.

Sarah was very keen in explaining how she made the work and was willing to have her photograph taken with the statue and pilgrims.

Pilgrims, with the ubiquitous red/orange/yellow backpack, would stop and have their photo taken with the JesusWalks statutes. Many planned to have their photo taken with each of the 33 JesusWalks statutes.

Jesus Walks - Sam Evans

The dates of my recent visit to Sydney Australia happened to coincide with the World Youth Day 2008. As an atheist, I had never heard of WYD SYD 08 but leaving the hotel it was hard to miss with road closures, police, barricades and 125,000-250,000 pilgrims in the city.

Numerous events were held in conjunction with WYD, one which was JesusWalks. In a nutshell, 33 artists were given a statute of The Sacred Heart of Jesus and asked show a contemporary view on “faith”. Each statute was on public display for the dates of the WYD and then will be put up for auction later in the year. The proceeds of the auction will benefit Youth Off The Streets, an Australian youth charity.

During my wanderings I was lucky enough to have detailed discussions with two of the artists involved in JesusWalks.

Peace in Surrender is by Sam Evans an Adelaide based self taught aerosol artist.

Sam being interviewed by ABC radio.

For obvious reasons the work is informally known as Camo Jesus.

The original work had Band-Aids over the stigmata but pilgrims would peel them off. A few of the statues were defaced during the week.

Either through good planning or luck, the work was placed in an area that was in shade for most of the day and had tree canopy backgrounds on two sides.