You will know them by their fruit by Jennifer Phillips
Easter 2004
Hazel, one of the ladies at church, who created wonderful visual experiences for our special church events, asked me if I would make an art work for the following Easter display she was making. She was thinking about using white flowers and fencing wood. As I prayed about what image I should create, barbed wire with a white rose came into my mind. I thought about the crown Jesus accepted, a crown of suffering, of earthly boundaries, being fenced in, of the perfect holy and beautiful Son of God whose flesh, like all flesh was able to be torn. The 'Rose of Sharon' came into my mind and even though the rose of the Sharon Plains was probably a red crocus, it spoke to me of something beautiful like a white rose.
Peter had given me some new computer software for Christmas, so I used it to see what my art work would look like, before painting it. I used a photo of a white rose adding more petals and a photo of a piece of barbed wire that I duplicated to create the front of the crown. After manipulating the photos I drew the rest of the crown and gave the wire a heavy metallic shine. It looked good. As I was running out of time, I decided to have the image printed onto canvas. I planned to paint over it, but when I saw it on canvass it looked so good I left it as a print. It was so well received I decided to contribute one for the following Easter, and so I began sharing what God was saying through images again as I had when I first became a Christian.
I exhibited it first at the CEGACT Conference in 2005.
I have since reworked the image and exhibited it in a number of exhibitions including the Australian National Gospel Happening (NGH) Art Exhibition 2005(left) and Flairwear Caverns Measureless exhibition in 2009 (right).
You can buy this art work on a greeting card.