Mormon Artists Enhance Cultural Richness and Foster a Deeper Understanding of Scripture

Mormon artists are professional sculptors, painters and other artistic practitioners who practice their faith while creating pieces of artwork that enrich cultural diversity and foster deeper knowledge of scripture.

Artists are increasingly depicting Heavenly Mother through non-representational art using shapes and symbols to explore her spiritual presence, breaking from tradition by going beyond depicting her as human figure and challenging racial and gender stereotypes.

Symbolism

Early on in its existence, Christianity was very wary about art depicting deity. Church members for nearly 100 years chastised any attempts at depicting God or Jesus artistically; any that did appear tended towards portrayals that depicted generic European male figures with an illustrative style.

As broad interest in Heavenly Mother has begun to overcome taboo against discussing her, artists are beginning to interpret her in diverse ways without rigidifying interpretations of divine femininity. Instead, artists offer multiple ideas which both celebrate diversity while honoring her authority and power.

One way artists are depicting her is through landscapes that highlight local symbols and items. Cambodian artist Sopheap Nhem and Nigerian artist Joumana Borderie’s works place her in localized settings while using various body types to represent those who worship her across gender lines and races; these new images convey an expansive divinity beyond traditional Mormon art’s social constructs.

Temples

Temples have long been an integral part of Mormon artists’ works, particularly those depicting exterior scenes. While some pieces recall traditional European paintings, others possess an undeniably Mormon aesthetic.

As the Church has broadened its outreach worldwide, artists have found creative ways to incorporate temples into their works. Artist Eric Dowdle uses striking images of temples combined with puzzles to capture both their history and spirit in his artworks.

Many Mormon artists have challenged traditional notions of temple painting by producing geometric and stylized works that remain clearly Mormon. Artists such as Nick Stephens and Justin Wheatley create paintings which demonstrate this theme.

Heavenly Mother

Latter-day Saints believe in the doctrine of Mother in Heaven as a central belief. This concept asserts that God or a higher being is not alone but eternally bound to an irrepressibly beautiful female figure known as a goddess who serves as his counterpart and wife in Heaven.

Artists have represented Heavenly Mother in various forms and ways throughout their careers, often drawing upon diversity within local Mormon contexts. Artists worldwide have depicted Heavenly Mother with landscapes depicting items or symbols specific to their native cultures as representations of her divine femininity.

Additionally, depictions of Heavenly Mother are notable due to their wide range of ages. Whereas depictions of Mormon male deities often display masculinity through physical features like beards, images of divine feminine are less obvious in signifying gender – Melissa Tshikamba’s Breath of Life by Amber Lee Weiss appears to depict her in her sixties while Romana by Amber Lee Weiss features clearly female figures with no obvious signs of ageing.

Early Mormons

Mormonism stands apart from other religions by using art as a medium for communicating its faith for centuries, with artists employing realistic representations of temples and other holy sites as well as non-representational works that use symbols instead of real figures to represent concepts or entities – this allows viewers to imagine divinity more freely without feeling bound by social conventions that often frame Mormon artistic depictions of divinity.

As one example, artist and assistant BYU professor Anthony Sweat created a piece depicting Joseph Smith gazing upon his seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon. This artwork breaks with tradition by showing God only as an older male figure, and shows an artistic flexibility not previously seen in Mormon images of divine female divinity. Melissa Tshikamba and Heather Ruttan’s art shows Heavenly Mother portrayed with various races that fills an existing gap in Mormon images of divine feminine divinity.