It's too bad that art has been reduced to this type of simplicity. It's a shame that artists strive to move people to shock instead of awe over their work. There is nothing awe-inspiring about this insipid work.
THE artist behind a controversial work depicting terrorism mastermind Osama bin Laden morphing into Jesus today invited those considering her work to look a little more deeply than the obvious comparison of good and evil.
Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks denied she had deliberately set out to be offensive.
"Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don't accept," she said.
Bracks' work and a statue of the Virgin Mary wearing an Islamic burqa by Sydney artist Luke Sullivan have been entered into Australia's top religious art competition, the Blake Prize.
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Bracks told The Daily Telegraph her double portrait was not meant to compare Jesus with bin Laden, but was a commentary on the way the terror leader was treated in the media.
She was concerned bin Laden would be unintentionally glorified in years to come.
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Sydney artist Luke Sullivan, who created the Virgin Mary piece entitled The Fourth Secret of Fatima, said his work was not meant to be controversial but provocative.
"It poses the question of what's the future of religion," Sullivan said.
"They (religions) are hegemonic in their nature.
"They can be all-encompassing and powerful."
No one who knows Christianity and Islam could say they are "hegemonic in their nature."
