Landon Bates is a visual artist based in Northeast Arkansas working with several media like charcoal, collage, and oil paint. He primarily is a figurative artist, working with models and reference photos, but sometimes explores the realm of abstraction as well. His focus is the human body and the many ways it can be represented and viewed. Artists of art history like Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, and Matisse have had a big influence on his work; as well as contemporaries’ likes Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown, and Denis Sarazhin, to name a few. In his current body of work, he explores traditional Catholic Icons of saints and martyrs, displaying them in a way that fits the style of his other work, while taking common themes from art history and applying them to his current interests. Bates will graduate Arkansas State University with a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in May.

Growing up in a traditional Pentecostal church, Catholicism was an ‘other’. It existed on the outside of my perspective, on television, in artwork, and in books, but never in the community I grew up in. In a non-representational protestant church, I didn’t see any overarching connection between religion and artwork, that is, using it as a tool rather than a decoration, yet in the Catholic church, artwork was used to teach and intertwine into religion. For example: In medieval times, people relied on artwork to tell them the story, as much of the population was illiterate.  I want the viewers of my artworks to approach them not as a modern collage, but as a Catholic Icon displaying martyrs of my faith. The images are meant to appear as a precious object, separated from the viewer by glass, to enhance their importance.

My current work, brings several of my interests together in an Iconic style to represent several Catholic saints and martyrs recognized by the Catholic church. Materials collide to form the images made from found papers, oils, and others. In this way I have brought several of my interests in printmaking, painting, and drawing, to create dynamic images connected to each other by color and texture. My subjects hold power in the center of every image, each one embellished with a halo to show their importance. I chose to depict each saint in a moment of either torture or ecstasy.  These are two experiences far from each other, yet each Saint pictured has experienced both. Saint Denis was beheaded for following Christ. Saint Sebastian was struck with arrows and later clubbed to death for his faith. Saint Bartholomew was skinned strip by strip. These are moments of absolute terror, and the church uses images of them to both remember and inspire.

In art history, traditionally Saints are given an identifier, an object or animal which we can see and recognize which Saint is displayed. For Saint James, it is his Pilgrim’s Staff that we recognize, for Saint Sebastian, it is the arrows in his side.  By including these objects in my artworks, it lets the viewer play a role in identifying the subject before reading the title card. It becomes and experience for Catholic-minded people, and an educational experience for all others.

I am creating a sacred place by grouping these images together, displayed behind glass, with professional lighting, in an art museum, makes one feel like they are in a sacred place. Often times in a place of worship you experience the same feeling. My hope is that my current body of work, would transport the viewer into a place of calmness and contemplation which many scared places bring, who may not have experienced this themselves. Art Museums and churches have a similar set of happenings. We enter each one expecting to learn something. We are often quite, in our best dress, with the best manners and respect. Both churches and art museums offer a place to meditate on something, whether that be the words of a holy text, or the lifework of a long-dead artist. And we often leave both changed. These artworks help me to merge these two spaces into one. I am making two worlds intertwine, and two peoples come together.

I have been using ideas and imagery from religion throughout my time at Arkansas State University, and I will continue to do this in my work hereafter. After making these images I hope to continue to explore the idea of other mediums, in addition to collage, to build my portfolio with images that are all cohesive, and that build and support each other as a whole.