31st Century Crucifixion by Mark Sheeky

G149A 31st Century Crucifixion
Oil and gold on panel
Jun to Oct 2008, Size 510x790 mm

Detail from 31st Century Crucifixion by Mark Sheeky Detail from 31st Century Crucifixion by Mark Sheeky Detail from 31st Century Crucifixion by Mark Sheeky

About this painting
This was planned in November 2007. Despite being an atheist since the age of four, my catholic upbringing subsumes my psyche and leaks into many aspects of my work.

I wanted to paint a crucifixion set in a world that has rejected religion, that idea was called 21st Century Crucifixion. I then wondered what a 31st Century Crucifixion would look like and quickly drew an idea where a geometrically abstracted top half represented technology, while organic forms at the base represented humanity and emotion.

This is a picture about the coldness of a technological future. A spire, like a transmitter with planetary orbits, forms a cross. A central sun becomes the head of a crucified figure, crowned with a rectangle of gold. The top half of the painting disintegrates into cold geometrical shapes while at the base of this crucifixion figures and forms of bone and flesh are filled with emotion.

A tiny black planet tries to eclipse a great blue sun; man tries to eclipse God. Planets fall, as do tears. Feelings are dead in this future. All is lost. All is lost.

Technical details
This painting uses gold leaf, in this case applied using a traditional oil size over the underpainting. Gold, and the then more expensive ultramarine blue were common partners in early religious oil paintings and have been used here in the large ring as a nod to that heritage.

31st Century Crucifixion (Original)
Price: £3000.00
Click here if you would like to buy this artwork.

31st Century Crucifixion (Signed Limited Edition Reproduction, Of 100)
Price: £175.00
Email contact@marksheeky.com if you would like a print.