Join us for the closing reception of Zac Benson: Reflecting on Faithfulness on Friday, March 3rd from 7-9pm. A brief artist talk will begin at 7:30pm.

Honest Christians in America have needed to ask themselves challenging questions in recent years. Faced with social and political changes, how does one live faithfully now? 

In the book How to Inhabit Time, James K.A. Smith wrote, 

“There are lots of religious people for whom their faith amounts to a leap into a nostalgic past or an escapist future, but the present bedevils them: awkward and unsettled, they stumble and waver. They know how to be faithful anywhere but now.”

Faithfulness can only be lived in the present. It must be tangibly enacted within one’s current time and place. Zac Benson’s artworks in Reflecting on Faithfulness wrestle with this question of how to live Christianly in the contemporary world. Contemporary art serves as an engaging vehicle to drive forward questions about contemporary faith. Benson writes,

“My studio is where I navigate current happenings, personal beliefs, and anthropological perspectives, while allowing myself to concentrate on the ones that grip my attention. I toil over aspects of life and society that are concerning, meaningful, or just overwhelming. I want the viewer to have the opportunity to grapple with these ideas as well.”

Zac Benson is an international artist who has shown in Taiwan, Bulgaria, and throughout the United States. He has also had public commissions in Australia, California, New York, and Washington, D.C.. His gallery work deals with the relationship between his personal faith and beliefs and his engagement with society while his public sculptures deal with the traditional relationship of scale and form.  He graduated with his B.F.A. in sculpture from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2011 and an M.F.A. in Studio Art from The University of Maryland in 2017. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Anderson University where he teaches sculpture and ceramics.

Find more of his art at zacbenson.com and on Instagram @zac.benson