For someone interested in both the theoretical and practical side of the relationship between word and image I was especially attentive to the problems that might arise for the artists involved in TheoArtistry during their efforts to make work and to convincingly align theory and practice in relation to the multi-faceted idea and experience of ‘revelation.’ It was interesting to discuss this issue, and I was glad to be able to reflect with them on the various strategies available for helping to keep the big balloons of imagination, concepts, and ideas firmly tethered to the ground.
Another interesting point that arose was the fact that within the context of religion one obvious purpose of the word is to clarify and explicate the meaning of an image, but that disciplining the image’s inherently polysemic fecundity can sometimes imprison it, thereby not actually revealing meaning but instead narrowing it. I ended up thinking that one could describe theology and art as both sharing in the exploration of words and images as they vie for control of revelation, and that perhaps it is out of this inevitably unresolvable contest that the best kind of theology and art arises.
by Simon Morley