"The Risen Lord" by Dr. He Qi (www.heqigallery.com)

In recent weeks, I have been working hard on the Winter issue of Concordia Journal, the quarterly theological publication of Concordia Seminary. This week we received permission to use “The Risen Lord” (above), an artwork by prominent Chinese Christian artist He Qi (pronounced huh chee) for the cover. He Qi’s own personal story is remarkable, from growing up during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, to converting to Christianity, to becoming an artist of international renown.

Here is part of what I am writing for the editor’s note about the cover:

….His bold use of color and shape, his drawing on multiple art traditions, his faithful interpretation of biblical narrative—it all creates a total greater than the sum of its parts. Much like his older Japanese counterpart Sadao Watanabe (a familiar artist to those familiar with Concordia Seminary), He Qi draws deeply on the folk artistic and cultural traditions of his native land. But he is also drawing on western traditions, including modernist art. His evocations go farther back into history, but his use of color and depiction of the human figure are reminiscent of Max Beckmann and Marc Chagall, particularly the latter’s stained glass work. In many ways, He Qi’s work reads like stained glass and is as luminous….

The more one encounters He Qi’s art, the more one encounters the creative tension between the vernacular and the universal, the local and the global, what Robert Brusic calls the “synthesis between artistic indigenization and proclamation.” He Qi’s pictorial vocabulary is thoroughly Chinese, but the message is nothing less than the Gospel itself…. This tension reveals itself in “The Risen Lord” by its very placement of figures within the artwork, a balancing act that exists between the work’s center and its margins. At the center is the resurrected Christ himself. At the margins are groupings of Christ’s disciples. At the center is the Gospel, embodied in the One the Gospel proclaims. At the margins are the Gospel’s vernacular expressions, embodied in the persons of all those who profess him as Lord. And yet, Christ’s body extends from the center into, even beyond, the margins, his very vestments becoming the eucharistic table of those who gather as his body in the world….

We’re planning more to feature He Qi’s work at the Seminary’s iTunes U and ConcordiaTheology Web sites, including, we hope, a video interview with the artist. And there’s a chance we may be bringing his work to campus for an exhibition in the fall.

Ultimately, though, I believe this creative vernacular tension is a unique aspect of Christianity and part of its historical eagerness to translate its message into the cultures and languages in which it finds itself, for better and worse. In He Qi’s case, it’s definitely for the better.