Rachel Gresswell

My research considers the role of faith in the creative practice, within the Australian contemporary visual arts context. More than an investigation of faith as visual subject matter, religious iconography or traditional Christian visual culture, I am exploring how concepts of faith influence the creative process, and how it manifests in the ‘everyday’ of artmaking and thinking for artists. I am particularly interested in how these ideas apply in the current context, in light of and in response to, the local and global events and traumas from late 2019-2020 and beyond.

Part of my research investigates how discussions of faith in visual art have changed or diminished in recent history in line with Australia becoming a more secular nation and how in other cultural arts contexts it appears to be a more integrated or normalised aspect of the conversation. Ongoing, my research seeks engagement in support of an open dialogue for faith-informed creative process, challenging reductive labels of religious identity.

Currently, I’m reading into the work of Anna Hickey-Moody, who proposes an expanded definition of ‘faith’. Moving beyond strict links to religion or belief structures, Hickey-Moody (2019, 927) posits, “a new materialist philosophy of faith” where faith is expressed as “an ontological state, an orientation, and a capacity to act”, for both religious and non-religious people.

Hickey-Moody, Anna. 2019. “Faith.” Philosophy Today 63, no. 4: 927-941.https://doi.org/10.5840/philtoday202019302

Supervisors: Dr. Celeste Chandler, Dr. Stephen Haley

Research Areas

Drawing, visual art, stop motion, moving image, animation, everyday, faith, figurative

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