Creating and Sharing God’s Love through Art

Many selections from the 12th International Art Competition and Exhibition are available online. You can browse the selections at history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org/museum/artcompetition/2022 or in person at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, from March 17, 2022, through early 2023.

You can find more articles like this in the April 2022 Liahona.

Pamela Salinas Bernal sought to capture how God shows His love for us in His creations. She says:

“God our Father has given all His creations to all His children equally. The great creations that Jesus Christ prepared for us under the Father’s direction—the sea, the mountain, the desert, the jungle, and the savannah—were represented in a single set. The outstretched hands and some of the most significant representations of God’s creations are a symbol of His love for all of us regardless of our origin, race, condition, religion, or ethnicity.

“The temple on the hill represents one of the greatest displays of God’s goodness toward all His children, as all are invited to live worthy to enter and enjoy His blessings. The central circle represents the earth and symbolizes the creations and love of God, which are eternal, without beginning or end. He is waiting for you to come to Him and receive all His blessings.”⁶

“The Family: A Proclamation to the World” teaches that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”⁷ Being part of God’s family and part of earthly families is an evidence of God’s love, which Hyrum Benson sought to capture in this work. He says: “These two bowls are the personal genealogies of my wife and me. Each bowl features seven generations” with important dates and locations of the individuals.

Hyrum adds: “Using traditional letterpress type, I hand-pressed each individual character into the unfired stiff clay. While the process is tedious and has its own set of issues, I wanted to hand-press the type, letter by letter, name by name, date by date, because of the symbolic nature that these individuals have played in my life. In reality, they have been imprinted on my soul. By pressing each letter, I have been privileged to know these individuals more, learning where they came from and seeing a glimpse of why they did what they did. Despite all these names, dates, and places, these bowls only tell a fraction of the story, which I am grateful to have.”

Amanda Luschin did not discover her artistic ability until she tried sketching her daughter just for fun, and she was surprised by how well it turned out. Art became an outlet for her to battle crippling depression. “I picked up a pencil and paper and started a new adventure in art,” she says. Her purpose? “I love beautiful things and sharing joy and goodness whenever I can. I hope that’s what I can do with my art.”⁸

Regarding this art piece, Amanda says:

“I love the beauty of flowers, and the song ‘Consider the Lilies’ has always been a favorite of mine. With that song in mind, I picked the subject of my drawing, as there are many varieties of flowers in the world, just like the vast number of peoples and cultures. In picking the flowers, I wanted to show a variety, from the common (including even pesky weeds like dandelions) to less well-known flowers. I especially wanted to include the prickly thistle, as I’ve always felt a bit like a prickly, unwanted thistle. I put the red rose as part of the crown of thorns to symbolize the Atonement of Christ, which we are all invited to partake of and which unifies us if we let it. The blue background symbolizes Christ as the Living Water, which gives life to us all.

“I have always seen the natural beauty and amazingness of people around me. Drawing this piece was a constant reminder to me of the fact that Christ wants me to see the beauty in myself too. I need to let go of all the lies that depression has held me captive with and learn to find the good in myself. It’s definitely a slow process, but creating this artwork has helped me start that process. Like it says in the song ‘Consider the Lilies,’ ‘He will heal those who trust Him.’”

Jonathan Kay’s purpose with this painting (based on 1 Nephi 8:10–11) was to “engender discussion between children and adults” about not only God’s love for us but also how His plan of salvation influences the joy and blessings we will experience in the eternities.

Jonathan adds: “Although ‘all are alike unto God’ (2 Nephi 26:33), each of us decides our ultimate destination by the life we live. The three degrees of glory are represented by the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament and by the structure of the tree” and also by how each of the three groups of birds is partaking of the fruit. Our desire is to live worthy of the celestial kingdom, where we can live in the presence of Heavenly Father forever.

Nicole Woodbury Preece says that with her art she “is primarily concerned with capturing that sense of awe and wonder I feel in nature by blending the beauty of mathematical and scientific elements with creative expression. I use organic patterns to express the universal truth that we are purposefully and powerfully made and that the care used to design the heavens and the earth was used to design each of us.”⁹

To describe this sculpture, she first explains the science that inspired it: “In something as simple as a stomp, a jolt travels up and down the legs, and tiny fractures ripple through the bone marrow matrix. Osteoblast cells infuse the scene, repairing and reinforcing all the tiny fractures. It is in these areas that bone density increases; thus, the more these jolts occur, the stronger the bones become. Every time we fall, every time we jump, we are weakening our bones and then strengthening them.”

Nicole then describes her process: “I began by sculpting the impression of undulating waves into a square of solid porcelain. After forming the clay into the shape of waves, I carefully carved the details of a bone marrow matrix. During the drying process, the piece began to shrink, forming the pattern of fractures spreading across the carving. After the firing, I repaired these fractures using a Japanese method called kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Gilding cracks in this way celebrates the beauty of experience and enhances the value of whatever pottery was once broken, just as the Atonement of Jesus Christ does in our lives. Because we are fallen, because we sin, we all depend on the Savior. ‘All are alike unto God’ (2 Nephi 26:33), from the color of our skin to the marrow of our bones. We are all broken. Yet it is in the breaking and in the stumbling and in the falling that we are strengthened. It is Jesus Christ and His Atonement that strengthen us.”

Amy Clements’s inspiration for this piece stemmed from truths about God taught in Moses 1:33: “And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose.”

Amy says: “I find joy in the fact that Heavenly Father created me and billions of others all alike—alike in the fact that we were all created with a heavenly purpose that He knows of! In this way, all of God’s children are alike, even though our paths may be different.”

This piece represents the “worlds without number” created for all of Heavenly Father’s children, who have the divine purpose of returning to Him through the plan of salvation. Amy adds: “My hand-sewn worlds aren’t perfectly circular and my scraps are all different sizes, but so are God’s children. We all are slightly different with different paths and talents, but we all shine with heavenly purpose, just like my celestial worlds in my art piece.”

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