Silvia Ilona Klatt

This painting was done with a model and photo references of her. It had been an idea I was 'pregnant' with for a while and here are some of my reflections behind the painting: „How would you walk if you had a dove on your shoulder? I’d say you will move every step with the dove in mind, to protect what you value the most.” - Bill Johnson This painting resulted out of the reflection on how hard it is to keep a dove on ones shoulder. When Jesus got baptized, it says, the Spirit came down like a dove and rested on him. He walked with the dove. What would that have looked like? A dove was not a domesticated cage bird. It was wild and free, hard to catch and it came and went swiftly. ”All too easy for the Church as an institution to try and tame God’s Spirit. The Bible pictures the Holy Spirit as untameable – as wind, fire or a dove. The dove was not, as we often imagine it, so domesticated that it never flies outside the comfort of a dovecot. The rock doves of the Bible flew in from the wild and back out into the wild.” (Ray Simpson, Exploring Celtic Christianity, p.122). Living with the Spirit of God is a wild adventure and only sometimes a tame river. Too often I am being in my head and not in tune with the Spirit. This painting was meant as a reminder of my process of letting the Spirit come. It’s also painted on silver leaf which shines through and reflects, blurry, and distorted, because the view we have of us is never really who we are. And I need to know, that the mirror never shows me, who I am, but when I am in quiet reflection and listening to the Spirit I can learn who I am. Beloved.