Sacred Conversations

Every culture has rituals and symbols that link daily life to the sacred realm of gods and goddesses, whether a single divinity or many. Numerous forms of faith also have magical messengers, such as saints or angels.

Our understandings of their divine powers, their roles and the means by which people relate to them, have come down to us through oral histories, art and literature, with some remaining unchanged over the centuries, and others responding to current movements within a particular form of faith.

Sacred Conversations explores the links between certain forms of religious art and the manner in which important themes - themes that touch all of us during our lives - have been explored and re-interpreted by modern and contemporary New Zealand artists. While some of these artists have retained identifiable historical narratives, others have used abstraction to visualise that which cannot be expressed or articulated through recognisable deeds or identities.

Until 12 February
Level 1
Free entry

Image: Unknown artist after Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Two Saints in Adoration
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki, gift of Mr Norman B Spencer, 1967

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