Artistic Reflections

"I come from a land of rich, ancient, and diverse cultures and traditions. While I carry the enriching influences of both West and East, I express myself through an Asian and Christian consciousness with respect for all confessions of religious faith," says Nalini Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka. Her book offers richly diverse and evocative expressions of faith from an Asian perspective. Her reminisces are included.

Sawai Chinnawong, of Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, is known for portraying Christianity through a Thai graphic idiom. Sawai is an ethnic Mon whose Buddhist ancestors migrated to Thailand from Myanmar. His drawings and paintings, inspired by traditional art from central Thailand, reflect a deep Christian faith.

Soichi Watanabe, whose art was hailed by Christianity Today as “The Good News in Oil and Acrylic,” is a member of the Asian Christian Art Association and a native of Japan. His paintings have been displayed in numerous solo exhibitions, including “Prayer for Peace” at the Ein Karem Gallery, Tokyo, in 2006, and “The Prodigal Son Returns” at Yale University Institute of Sacred Music, in 2009. For the Least of These is a colorful rendition of his evocative creativity.

Painting and drawing has been the great passion for as long as Hanna Cheriyan Varghese can remember.  Presently Hanna, who is from Selangor, Malaysia, dyes batik cloth pictures and paints with acrylics. "This is my way of witnessing for Christ for the gift I have been blessed with," she says. Hanna was coordinator of the Malaysian Christian Artists Fellowship, and was a Committee Member of the Asian Christian Art Association (1998-2003). Her work has been featured by In God's Image, the journal of the Asian Women's Resource Center for Culture and Theology; IMAGE, publication of the Council of Churches of Malaysia News, as well as by the Christian Council of Asia News, The Upper Room, and Augsburg Fortress, and others.

"I paint what I can see, what I can touch, what I can feel—a utopia of love expressed in the reality of life. All of that inspires me in my artistic way," says Wisnu Sasongko, a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Art, Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta. This book includes "All Dreams Connected," a 28-minute DVD about Sasongko and his art. 

Emmanuel Garibay, Overseas Ministries Study Center’s 2010–11 resident artist, is a Philippine painter known as much for his expressionist figurative style as for the content of many of his works, which often express a keen social and political consciousness.