Upon reading the theme of this competition, I was struck by the invisible nature of the armor of God. Paul uses armor to describe the facets of how the Lord intends for us to survive this war, but in truth, the armor is intangible. So many artists throughout the ages of try to illustrate, myself included, trying to be literal to Paul's descriptions. But what is salvation that protects our head, or righteousness shielding our chest actually look like? In my I process I decided to keep these as abstract as invisible as they are in the Christian experience. Instead, I decided to show the evidence of a life lived with the full armor of God. It is one set free like a marionette doll with the strings have been cut, face turned up toward light and Life.

Popular 20th century psychologist Carl Jung claimed that people don’t have ideas but ideas have people. Biblical scholars have known this for a millennia. Ephesians Chapter 6 clearly states that we don’t wrestle against other people, rather our struggle is with entities much more powerful and unseen inhabiting the space around us.

After meditating on this idea and a marionette doll concept rose to the surface among us other ideas. A marionette doll is not autonomous, it doesn’t have free volition over its limbs, over it’s going and coming. So too with us. Our strings are cleverly concealed in ideas. There are forces at work manipulating us. It is only through the illumination that comes through the good news of the finished work of Christ that we can become aware of what literally is pulling our strings and how to sever them.

Kristopher Orr

Please contact me at info@korrart.com