Stations of the Cross - 2025
Some non-film art endeavors for Holy Week
I’m blessed to attend a church that places a high value on the contributions of artists. One of my favorite manifestations of this blessing is the church’s yearly practice of commissioning artists from the congregation to contribute dedicated pieces for use in the Stations of the Cross. For those unfamiliar with the tradition, the church’s explanation is as follows:
Prayerful meditation on the Stations of the Cross is an historic Christian tradition through which the Church has reflected on the narrative of Christ’s condemnation, crucifixion, and death. The final hours of Christ’s earthly life are broken into several “stations” at which worshipers are asked to stop, meditate, and pray on the moment being represented to them.
This will be my third year contributing artwork to this practice and I feel privileged every time I get to do so. As someone who almost exclusively works with motion, creating still art is an enjoyable change of pace, and given that my work is usually oriented towards attention or entertainment, designing for contemplative use is a welcome challenge.
I will share this year’s piece near the end of this post, but if you are in Pittsburgh, I would encourage you to go experience it in its proper context amongst the other stations. All eight stations will be exhibited throughout Holy Week at Church of the Ascension in Oakland, accessible to the public from 12 pm to 7 pm each weekday and until 3 pm after the noon service on Good Friday.
Each of my pieces will be shared here with the artist statement that originally accompanied them and no further commentary. That being said, I am happy to answer questions or explain aspects of any of the works to the curious, so feel free to ask anything in the comments.
However, given our current technological climate, I will pre-empt one question and clarify that these are all actual, practical photographs of physical objects/people with some digital retouching. While I am a digital artist and quite obviously used Photoshop to achieve some of the end results (I did not cut off my arm for the floating arm of the second piece, nor did I resurrect the dead to portray Mary in the third), none of these images are AI-generated. This is especially important to clarify for this year’s piece, so I will include a quick “before and after” at the end to show what was practical and what was digitally altered.
Station 8 - Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
The Perfect Law (2023)
Sculpture, Digital Photography
“When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb.”
Artist Statement:
“Because you think to take hold of the life of the Age, you search through the scriptures; and those are what testify concerning me; yet you do not wish to come to me in order to take hold of life.”
-The Gospel According to John, Chapter 5, Verses 39-40
Station 6 - Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
Behold the Human Being (2024)
Digital Photography
“When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him; and with him they crucified two criminals, one on the right, the other on the left, and Jesus between them. And the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘He was numbered with the transgressors.’”
Artist Statement:
“Cum enim praeexisteret salvans, opportebat et quod salvaretur fieri, uti non vacuum sit salvans.”
“Since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain.”
-Irenaeus of Lyon
Nailed to the cross and lifted up in glory, Jesus beckons all men to himself, out of nothingness and into being. The Cosmos were created from the Cross, that “still point of the turning world,” and until we take up our own cross to follow in the steps of he who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, “let us make man” and “it is finished,” we are not yet made.
Behold the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world.
Behold the Glory of the Lord, the firstborn of the dead, he who is before all things and in whom all things hold together.
“Ecce homo”
Behold, the Human Being.
SFX Makeup by Jacquelyn Federowski and Alexa Fremount
Additional Hand Model - Chad Bruns
Station 7 - Jesus Dies on the Cross
Son, Behold Your Mother (2025)
Digital Photography
“When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ And when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished!’ And then, crying with a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ And he bowed his head, and handed over his spirit.”
Artist Statement:
“Our great God, the supreme wisdom of all, made himself ready in this humble place and dressed himself in our poor flesh, himself to perform the service and the office of motherhood in everything. The mother's service is closest, most willing, and most sure: closest because it is most natural, most willing because it is most loving, and most sure because it is most true. No one ever might nor could perform this office fully, nor ever did, but he alone. We know that our mothers bear us and bring us into this world to suffering and to death, and yet our true mother Jesus, he, all love, gives birth to us into joy and to endless life—blessed may he be! So he sustains us within himself in love and was in labour for the full time, he who wanted to suffer the sharpest pangs and the most grievous sufferings that ever were or ever shall be, and at the last he died. And when he had finished and so given birth to us into bliss, not even all this could satisfy his marvelous love; and he revealed that in these exaltedly surpassing words of love: 'If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’”
-Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
-Colossians 3:3-4
The sacrifice inherent in motherhood is a quiet echo of divine kenosis. To bear life is to love innocence into a travailing world and our delivery is incomplete until it has followed Christ through the grave. As a mother in the pangs of birth, God binds Himself to suffering to bring about our making.
Model: Carter Shearer
FX Makeup: Sam Whipkey
Special thanks to Adam Paluh
Before and after: