deankessmann

Transubstantiation: Bread & Wine/Body & Blood

duratrans in lightboxes, silver gelatin photograms, various sizes, 2000
edition 1/1

archival pigment prints
2 15/16 x 4 1/4 inches
2003-7
edition 3 with 1 AP

Read a short description of this project

Transubstantiation: Bread & Wine/Body & Blood

The intersection of art, religion, and science offers an unending list of questions to answer and answers to question; answers and questions that run parallel, violently collide, or fluidly intermingle. The concept of transubstantiation, the physical transformation of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, is an amazing and mysterious concept to consider, both intellectually and spiritually. A human sacrifice remembered, a visceral body and blood ritual repeatedly enacted. All of the works in this series were derived from holy wafers that were saturated in wine. However, as detailed as these images are, this work will not definitively answer any questions of faith. Not knowing their source, one might assume that these images are a series of celestial (heavenly) bodies, extreme magnification of cells, and a table covered with raw and bloody flesh. Obviously, by making these images of holy wafers saturated in wine, I have not turned them into the body and blood of Christ, nor am I making any such claim. However, a dramatic transformation has taken place. These substances have become something other than what they once were. These are objects for contemplation. They will not provide any undeniable proof, but if given time, they just might help us to answer that which they initially had refused to reveal.