In daily life, something keeps drawing me back to this moment, not just visually, but spiritually.
A few years ago, I created, in a similar style, an homage to one of my most favourite paintings; the powerful interpretation of a moment between Christ and Pilate: Ecce Homo, by Ciseri. That scene, with Christ confronting imminent death before a baying crowd has always felt like a confrontation, not only of suffering, but of truth itself! Pilate, faced with something he cannot quite grasp, asks his question. A question that lingers far beyond the painting.
What is Truth?
Jesus, after his torture, carries the cross, fully within the weight of it. The question remains, but in this moment begins to shift. It becomes less about accusation and more about something inward. When the path leads through suffering, where there is no visible victory, no immediate answer, what then is truth?
On my story wall, the last post before this one was April 9, 2023
At that time, I was sitting by my father’s bedside on what would be his final stretch that year. The poem that accompanied the image came from fragments of conversation about Easter and stories about kite flying on the shores of Freetown (Sierra Leone was once all about kites at Easter!) The image itself was simple, amalgamated on my phone, reworking an old kite design. The rest were random photos.
Those special moments with dad weren’t thought of in terms of faith, or truth. It was just being present.
Silent Witness
My father was a man of few words (except when joke telling), yet deeply anchored in his faith. Not loudly, not as a performance, but resolute; in the way he lived, worked and endured. Parenting, like life, is never simple and he carried both with a quiet resolve. He was the hardest worker I have ever known and yet, even as his strength faded, something else seemed clearer.
Watching him in those final days, I began to understand something I’d struggle to explain before. Faith isn’t always spoken. It doesn’t always appear with certainty or clarity. Sometimes, it reveals itself most fully when there is almost nothing left to give.
Even then, it remains!
And perhaps that is where the question, “What is truth?”, finds its closest answer. Not in explanation, but in witness. In the quiet endurance of those who carry what remains of their duty, trusting, even faintly, that beyond what we can see, there is something more.
My process, from raw sketch to a clean finished illustration, is slow and deliberate. It has to be. Each line, each shape and each decision is made without paying much attention to my training as a painter. I’m merely trusting the process in the space. This open approach has me reflect on Christ’s final journey, not just as a distant story, but as something deeply human. By simplifying the form while not worrying about whether my colour-shapes are accurate, I find the meaning often becomes clearer and not so restrictive.
In the doubts, the looseness, then stepping back to see the bigger picture, I’m reminded that this is a collective journey for us all.
We all carry something; moving, in one way or another, toward an end we cannot avoid. There is a weight to that truth. But Good Friday does not leave us there! It holds us in that tension, between suffering and hope, between death and what may come after.
Truth, perhaps, is not found in having the answer to Pilate’s question…
It is found in continuing forward anyway along the imperfect paths of our lives, the pain and hardship, the silence and noise; trusting that only beyond the cross, there always remains hope!
It’s good to be back!
