When you close your eyes and picture the face of God, what do you see?
For many years, Maria Brock, a 24-year-old digital artist, saw a face of judgment and disappointment. Now, she imagines God gazing at her with unconditional care, compassion and patience.
That perspective shift inspired her to create her own humanizing, faith-filled paintings through her business Magnificat Prints. “(Some) art can be very pious, very stiff and it doesn’t necessarily allow you to enter into a warm relationship with God,” she said. “(I wanted) to provide more kind and welcoming portraits of the saints.”
Her painting of the Holy Family, for example, invites viewers in with an image that almost looks like a modern-day family photo. But instead of matching outfits and pasted-on smiles, joy beams from the faces of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, depicted as a young Middle Eastern family in biblical-era clothing. Only a golden ray of light illuminating the trio lets the viewer know that the faces looking out of the frame aren’t members of an everyday family.
Brock, the youngest of eight children, grew up primarily in Leesburg, where she attended St. John the Apostle Church. Though she always had a firm belief in God, as a child, she began to think of God as a legalistic overseer. She struggled with anxiety and an extreme concern with sin. “I never stopped going to Mass, but my heart wasn’t in it,” she said.
While in college at George Mason University in Fairfax, her chaplain, Father Jeb S. Donelan, helped her to see God’s love. “He really had this fatherly, gentle presence and he helped heal me of my scrupulosity,” she said. Going to confession with him for the first time in a while was an especially grace-filled moment. “I started healing tremendously from my negative images of an angry God or someone who’s waiting for you to mess up. Now my relationship with God is a lot more trusting and free and joyful.”
These days, Brock attends Holy Transfiguration Church in McLean, works as a data visualization designer and creates art in her free time. As part of the diocesan Marian Art and Concert Series, she recently completed Stations of the Cross for the St. Robert Bellarmine Chapel at Mason. “My housemate and her brother posed for me and it was a very spiritual and emotional process,” she said. “We were having fun but during certain scenes, especially the Pieta and the nailing to the cross, we were crying. To be posing for the station, it puts you bodily into (it).” When the art was unveiled, people told her they resonated with the facial expressions she captured, such as Christ screaming in pain and Mary lost in grief.
“It’s been an honor and a spiritual journey to go through this process of running the business and creating this art and seeing people enjoy it,” said Brock. “Those moments of connection have been the best.”
Maraist can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @zoeymaraistACH.
