Introduction

The exhibition of works by students, staff, and alumni from the School of Art presents a contemporary visual response to the Bible. The exhibition coincides with a major AHRC funded conference on Imaging the Bible in Wales, held at Aberystwyth University from the 31 March to the 4 April 2008. The new work will be shown alongside biblical art drawn from the University’s Collection of Art.

In the context of the exhibition, the Bible is dealt with as a source of stories, events, characters, symbols, metaphors, poems, histories, and as an embodiment of religious, social, and cultural values and beliefs. The works engage the text illustratively, historically, abstractly, decoratively and figuratively (in the broadest sense of that word).

The drawings, paintings, photographs, prints, and digital videos variously: explore the symbolical, metaphorical, typological, and allegorical significance of the texts; cast the images and ideas they summon into a contemporary mould; represent the numinous and sublime aspects of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; and enter into a discourse with the visual traditions of the Scriptures. 

Aislinn Knight, The Seven Seals: No.3 (2007)

The works refer to a variety of biblical books including Exodus, Daniel, and the Song of Songs and, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation. The exhibition is curated by John Harvey (Centre for Studies in the Visual Culture of Religion) and Martin Crampin and John Morgan-Guy (The Imaging the Bible in Wales project).