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Yes, it's Jesus and they're not having a laugh

By Jane Bradley

31 July 2004 - He's a black warrior, an ice-skater, a keen juggler and the spitting image of an Edinburgh artist.

Jesus, as he's never been seen before, is the subject of a series of pictures on show at a church festival coming to the Capital.

A group of 28 paintings of Jesus laughing, smiling and having fun is the centrepiece of a five-day extravaganza of dance, music, art and discussion aimed at displaying positive images of the Messiah.

The Jesus Laughed Festival features a wacky collection of paintings by artists across the globe, from an Edinburgh carpenter to villagers from the developing world.

The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, will join breakaway Christian innovators the Hearty Heretics to promote positive views of Christianity as part of the Fringe Festival. The mini festival at Greyfriars Kirk on Greyfriars Place, which kicks off with a ceilidh in the kirk itself, runs from August 16 to 20.

The unusual portrait collection was started when two Australian Christian charity workers decided to commission artists in the developing world.

Sydney businessman Harry Wallace, 73, and his wife Pat both worked as teachers in Glasgow before setting off around the globe. Exhibition co-ordinator and Hearty Heretic Maxwell MacLeod said: "Harry had an idea that what was needed in the church was more positive images as all the paintings of Jesus we had seen were of him in agony, expressionless, with a tolerant grimace or as a Man of Sorrows."

"There are many of us on the fringes of the Church who frankly find the Kirk a little dull, and this extraordinary collection of interesting events promises to be anything but that."

Famed 70s snow and ice climber Dave Bathgate joined the line-up of artists when he was asked to design some exhibition boards for the show.

"He looked at the paintings and said he could do better, so he did," said Mr McLeod. He added that some of the pictures, from Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, India and Aboriginal Australia reflected the local culture of the artist. Six of the portraits are by Scottish artists.

"Gigs Wena, from Papua New Guinea, showed Jesus as a smiling black warrior.

Rob Fairley, from Edinburgh, did a picture of Jesus as a self-portrait with the word "smile" beside it in the tradition of mediaeval painters," he said.

The picture of Jesus juggling was painted by Aberdeen cartoonist Graeme Murdoch, the creator of the Viz Black Bag comic strip. Mark J Cazalet, from London, painted Joy in Fellowship, which shows Christ catching Peter on a slippery ice rink, while Behold the Joy of Jesus by Australian artist Lindena Robb, shows a cheerful- looking Jesus leaping into the air.

A spokesman for the Church of Scotland said: "It would be no surprise at all if Jesus laughed. We consider Christ to have been a fully human figure and in the gospel he said many things he could not have said with a straight face. When he talked about a camel going through the eye of a needle he was clearly showing his sense of humour."

Source: The Scotsman

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