Zach Edgley

Zach Edgley

I chose the bible as an object to work with as I felt that it was one of the clearest icons of Christianity and Catholicism. I specifically wanted my piece to be directly commenting on both as to me they represent some very evil institutions. Coming from a family where most of my relatives are religious I’ve first hand seen a lot of the more negative aspects of the church and its teachings in my personal life.

For me, the physical manipulation of the bible was something that I was intrigued with. In earlier times this work would have been seen as blasphemous and heretic. Many people would still see it that way, but more and more nowadays people are becoming disenfranchised with the idea of religion. The other part of why I chose to work in the physical medium were the 7 sins themselves. By bringing the abstract concept of they each represent to life I could explore how they present themselves in our day to day. Not only that but I could draw from my own personal experience in the real world for each sin.

Artists that inspired me on this project include Andres Serrano for his work commenting on religion, the same with Paul Fryer a contemporary sculptor.

The lack of elements used in the pieces aside from the primary alteration is so that all the attention is focused on it. I wanted the damage done to each bible to speak for itself and be emblematic enough of the sin it represented to evoke it. Hieronymus Bosch is a cultural inspiration as he painted many visual representations of the 7 sins. Both the wrath and the greed sin I ended up completing art for where also meant to highlight historic wrongdoings of the church. Wrath a representation of violence and a reference to all the blood shed in the name of religion. And greed as representation of how the church has shifted towards being an enterprise over a faith.