Returning to Christ, Again - A Lenten Reader
Artist Statement
In the Gospel of Mark, almost nothing stands still. Jesus is always coming toward someone. Someone is always reaching toward Jesus. Across water, through crowds, out of wilderness and tombs, into homes and sickrooms. Mark’s Gospel is urgent, physical, and immediate. Faith is truly a response. People run, cry out, fall down, stretch out their hands. Jesus moves through fear, hunger, impurity, isolation, and even death, and in each place there seems to be a rising and a following. For Lent, this matters. Lent is a season of holy reorientation. A turning. A return. A willingness to be interrupted by Jesus, often with just a word. Lent places us back on the road with Jesus, where discipleship is embodied before it is often understood. I appreciate old woodcuts and creating linocut because they share something of Mark’s character. It is stark and immediate. There is no soft blending, only light and dark, presence and absence. The image appears only by cutting away. Linocut resists excess and often forces decisions. In that way, it mirrors discipleship itself. To follow Jesus in Mark is to leave things behind, to be stripped down, to move with fewer protections and clearer commitments. The rough edges and visible force of the cut are, in this way, part of the language. Mark does not give us a polished Christ. He gives us a living one, entering the story head on, always calling, always drawing near. My hope is that these images serve as companions for your Lenten journey. They are not made to explain, but to invite. I hope that they would help us notice where Christ is already stepping toward us, and where, by grace, we are being invited to rise, turn, and go to him.
Grace and Peace to you as you follow Jesus,
Preston Pouteaux
