The body of the work in total represents aspects of being an apostle, a man, and the nature of what it is to be a community.

These men lived, cried, worked, played, often died together, and knew each other inside and out. Within all of those activities they functioned as Christ to the community within and outside themselves; something the group I’m in is striving for as well.

Tim Timmerman

Curator’s Statement

 Tim Timmerman is an artist whose work combines thoughtful attentiveness to ideas and issues in the contemporary arts community, acknowledgment of the riches of the art of past centuries, and a deep attachment to the Christian story. This exhibition features 13 works based on the disciples of Jesus. Although the scriptural record speaks often of 12 disciples, some of the lists seem to differ in the details. Here, the apostle Paul -- whom Timmerman thinks of as filling the role that was abdicated by Judas’ betrayal of Jesus – is added to the Twelve, even though the Book of Acts tells us that Matthias was chosen by lot.

 Each work is comprised of a relatively small oil painting, attached to a much larger, complex frame. The frames are not simply decorative, but are actually integral to the meaning of the works. Evocative assemblages of found objects and meticulously rendered quotations of well-known artworks, they each contain symbolic meanings connected with the subject matter of the painting.

 These works are witty, idiosyncratic, and insightful. The portraits of the disciples are based on friends of the artist, and there is something in each man’s character or circumstance that connects him to the disciple he stands in for. In this series, Timmerman seems to be exploring what it means to be a man who follows Jesus today, as much as he is commenting on the biblical text and the extra-biblical material he has so meticulously researched.

Timmerman received an MFA in painting and drawing at Washington State University, Pullman, WA, and is currently employed as Associate Professor, Gallery Director, and Department Chair at Grand University, Phoenix, AZ. His work has been exhibited in numerous one-person and group exhibitions, primarily on the West Coast, and may be found in Emmanuel Baptist Church in Pullman, WA; First Methodist Church of Seattle, WA; the Warehouse Ministries in Sacramento, CA, as well as in private collections.

Deborah Sokolove