Venia: latin – grace, indulgence, favor, pardon, forgiveness.

This painting is separated into three canvases – a triptych. The gradation from the white on the left to the black on the right symbolizes people’s relationship to God and how close or far away from Him they are. The translucent brown material is polyurethane and represents God’s grace and how it covers, saturates and envelopes our lives. This is where the painting draws its name. God’s grace is present in everyone’s life no matter their color, creed or character. Throughout the piece there are pockets, pools and streams of grace in our lives. The variety of textures throughout visualize the different environments, experiences and backgrounds that are a part of the vast people groups of our world. The different thicknesses of paint and other materials is meant to reveal the depth of God’s character and the fact that we will never truly be able to wrap our mind around who God really is until as a Christian we experience heaven. In this painting there is actually more poly on the dark side than any other part to show the contrast between the grace that God shows compared to the pain evident in the lives of those that live in that reality. His grace is ever present regardless of our attitude, lifestyle, opinion or any other free will choice that affects our relationship with Him. God is good and His grace is one way He makes His goodness evident.

There are specific parts of the painting that have deeper meaning. The poly (1) built up on canvas one represents the crown that Jesus now wears seated in heaven. Right below it, the circle (2) represents the sacrifice that Jesus gave through the crown of thorns. There is another crown of thorns (3) on canvas two that symbolizes that Jesus’ death on the cross was not for “good” or “bad” people but for everyone. The circle of paint (4) has glow in the dark paint laid on top to reveal the supernatural side of God that we can’t see. On canvas three is a broken halo (5) to symbolize the author of sin. On canvas one is a small paper boat (6) that symbolizes the journey of a follower of Christ.