"The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision" (The Large Passion) by Doug Blanchard

New on Q Spirit in March 2024

Standing up for justice and love leads to pain, prison, death and ultimately resurrection for a contemporary urban Jesus in new gay Passion of Christ paintings by Doug Blanchard.

The New York artist expands and builds upon the success of his first version of “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” with a new series of 20 larger paintings. They feature a dark-skinned Jesus, his diverse friends, subtle homoeroticism and powerful new imagery. Jesus and his community live in a black-and-white world that bursts into vibrant color when he rises from the dead.

The complete series is available during Holy Week and Easter for the first time in March 2024. It is making its Q Spirit debut, and collectors can contact us through Q Spirit or the Passion book site to purchase the original 26-inch square canvas paintings.

“I began with the idea of gay and minority people actually having the experience of being despised and rejected and having walked that Via Dolorosa all the way to its fatal end quite literally in a way that perhaps a lot of other people have not,” said Blanchard, who teaches art and art history at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York.

He started working on the new series in 2016 and spent seven years painting his epic vision. The Large Passion series was shaped by the disturbing trends of the Trump presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic. Blanchard used the series to grapple with his own faith struggles as a self-described “very agnostic believer” during the rise of authoritarian leaders, human rights violations, economic inequality and other threats. More info