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davidtomlinartist

Canada
Beyond the Binaries

Beyond the Binaries

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26–28)

Regular contemplative practice allows us to maintain some measure of non-dualism whenever we are asked to move beyond our comfortable binaries. It seems that everything we put in a neat and tidy package must eventually be allowed to come undone, including our understanding of our bodies, gender, and attraction. This awareness, too, is a part of God’s incarnation in Christ! In this passage, transgender and Christian author Austen Hartke dialogues with Lynn Young, who identifies as non-binary, Native American, and Christian, about the significance of this passage from Galatians.

“One of the many ways I’ve tried to explain my gender journey to people who don’t get it is to say that, as I began to really dig into it and explore it and find the meaningful points for me, I felt like I was given this dirty floor and a toothbrush. As I started to scrub this floor I started seeing things, and as things were revealed, it turned out that this floor was an amazing mosaic, even though each piece by itself didn’t seem to be anything in particular. None of those pieces are unimportant because they all have to exist together to create the whole picture. So I’ve arrived at this place of knowing myself as a Two Spirit person, and that Two Spirit [1] is my gender. There’s a feminine part of me, and a masculine part of me, and there are also parts of me that are so intertwined that are both of those and then some, and they don’t have a name that fits within European gender constructs. . . . We have all these shards of identity in us, whether it’s our sexuality, our gender, our faith, our age, our cultural identity, our personal trauma histories—all of those things that are part of who we are combine to create our whole identity. I’m not just one piece—I’m not just the Christian, or just the Native person, or just Two Spirit, or just the survivor, or just the grandma—that small piece isn’t me; only the whole reflects who I am. I am all of this.”

Austen continues:

“So what was Paul thinking about these different pieces of our identity when he penned Galatians 3:28? And what does this verse mean for our understanding of gender? Was Paul saying that gender was no longer important—that through our baptism in Christ our gender identities were all erased or irrelevant? I very much doubt it. What Paul said about gender in this verse was revolutionary in that it confirmed that there was no patriarchy or misogyny in God’s new kingdom; it broke down the barriers between genders and between people of different genders and God. . . .”

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Artist Statement by David Tomlin

Artist Statement by David Tomlin

ARTIST STATEMENT

As a Canadian fine artist, I am passionate about painting a unique, contemporary expression of the interplay of light, colour, shape and texture. I am inspired by the sense of balance and design I discover in creation and am intrigued by the seemingly infinite variety of lines, spaces, textures, shapes and vibrant colours I find there.

I take several photographs of a subject and return to my studio to transform the scene into an abstracted and transfigured composition. I want the viewer to be excited by the textures, colours and shapes in my paintings. To create varied painting surfaces, I often use a mix of natural and created materials, including modelling paste, gels, silica sand, photo and stencil inserts in conjunction with acrylic or oil paint.

Together with a love of colour and a passion for design, my paintings evoke a sense of contemplative spirituality. The concept of ‘flourishing’ and what it means to thrive in life is a prominent theme in my artwork as I seek to create ‘contemporary artwork for a transfigured state of being.’

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