Last Updated on January 12, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
New spiritual affirmation for the LGBTQ community comes in a breakthrough work by a major painter of inclusive sacred art: “A Brave and Quiet Heart” by Janet McKenzie.
The painting shows an androgynous figure draped in a rainbow flag offering outstretched hands against a lavender backdrop while doves suggest the Holy Spirit or angel wings.
“This is the first time I have directly made the subject of a painting undeniably the LGBTQ community,” McKenzie told the Q Spirit blog. “The pride flag serves as the (joyful) action of the painting balancing the stillness of the subject.”
The Vermont artist created it to honor those who lost their lives in the mass shooting at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016. Like the dark-skinned young person with a faux-hawk haircut in McKenzie’s painting, most of the 49 dead were LGBTQ people of color in their 20s or 30s.
McKenzie has supported the LGBTQ spirituality projects of Q Spirit founder Kittredge Cherry since 2007, when she shared her controversial “Jesus of the People” painting as the cover image for Cherry’s book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.”
“For some time I have been asked to create art that includes the LGBTQ community, something I also wanted to do. Images, for the most part, do not simply appear however, an honest journey takes time to reveal itself,” McKenzie explained. She wrote this official narrative:
This painting presents one figure with outstretched arms in an invitational stance — allowing the heart to be vulnerable, open. Draped with an interpretation of the pride flag this beloved symbol has become part of the body, large and inseparable. Here the LGBTQ community is honored for choosing courageous paths to peace and justice over hate, time and again. I was inspired by Joseph’s “coat of many colors” from the Book of Genesis who invariably chose the ethical journey, which the community repeatedly does. Behind this very still figure are doves symbolizing the inherent sanctity and sacredness of this being, something that sadly remains unknown and unseen by those who reject, do not accept and are violent against the LGBTQ community.
McKenzie told Q Spirit that she has no plans to exhibit the painting yet, but “the right time and place always reveals itself.”
Janet McKenzie stirred controversy with “Jesus of the People”
McKenzie’s own experience with religious intolerance gives her insight and compassion that is distilled in “A Brave and Quiet Heart.” She was catapulted into international consciousness and controversy in 2000 when her “Jesus of the People” painting was unveiled on NBC’s “Today Show” as winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s contest to find an image of Christ for the new millennium. McKenzie’s vision of a mixed-race genderfluid Jesus was chosen by Sister Wendy Beckett, art historian and BBC television host.
“Jesus of the People” by Janet McKenzie appears on the cover of “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More”
Critics were outraged that McKenzie had painted Jesus as a black woman or at least somewhat feminine. They flooded her with hate mail accusing her of blasphemy and political correctness. The local Post Office began separating her mail for fear of a letter bomb. But the painting became established and embraced as a true icon for today. The controversy is covered in “Art That Dares.”
Kittredge Cherry with the original “Jesus of the People” painting in 2007 at at the book launch for “Art That Dares” in Taos, New Mexico
McKenzie also disrupted gender preconceptions with her “Epiphany” painting, which shows a multi-racial trio of female Magi visiting the baby Jesus and his mother. Instead of the traditional three kings or three wise men, the artist re-interpreted the Magi as wise women from around the world. Conservative Christians protested in 2007 when it appeared on the Christmas cards of the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.
McKenzie’s work has been widely exhibited, including shows at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee and the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. Her art book “Holiness and the Feminine Spirit” won the 2010 First Place Award for Spirituality from the Catholic Press Association. She also did all the illustrations for “The Way of the Cross: The Path,” an art book with reflections by Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and champion for justice.
“A voice for change, even hope”
“As an artist I have a responsibility to be a voice for change, even hope,” McKenzie said. “I have no interest in making art that is violent or negatively reactionary. My art comes from that universal and sacred place within that connects us all, beyond gender, beyond race, beyond perceived differences.”
Prints of “A Brave and Quiet Heart” can be purchased through her website, janetmckenzie.com. She can also make it available upon request for weather-resistant “protest/demonstration” signs meant to be carried.
“My hope is that ‘A Brave and Quiet Heart’ will serve as a visual testament to hope over despair, to love over hate and to the memory of those souls who lost their lives at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando,” she said.
Related link:
Orlando martyrs: Pulse gay nightclub massacre remembered in artwork “Triptych for the 49”
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Top image credit:
“A Brave and Quiet Heart” by Janet McKenzie
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
Life imitates art: https://www.newwaysministry.org/2018/05/18/made-in-gods-image-waithes-met-gala-cape-and-lgbtq-catholics/
The rainbow cape in this link makes a cool counterpoint to Janet’s painting.
Thank you, Janet! I love this image. This gift. This blessing.
So needed. So powerful. It is exquisite! And I will be sharing it and your narrative with the gender-fluid members of my family, my church community, my local chapter of PFLAG and with other LGBTQI advocacy organizations I support. God is with you and in you and through you, Janet McKenzie!
Thank you, Kitt, for bringing this art to us. I will always remember and bless you and your work shining in the wings of this celebration of the Beloved.
Thank you, Barbara! Wonderful to hear from you and your response is so appreciated. Thank you also for the good and needed work you do for LGBTQI advocacy organizations. Like you I am grateful to Kitt’s ongoing support, especially of my art!
Thank you, Barbara!