Can Christian Art Be Abstract? The Biblical Case

Force Unbound is 122 centimetres of bull tearing through layered texture and raw mark making, across a square canvas that does not ask your permission to be looked at. The question I get asked most often about it is whether it counts as Christian art, and the question is sincere.

Most people's framework for Christian art is figurative: Jesus at Calvary, the nativity, the open tomb. They look at a bull and cannot find the theology. But there are people who look at it and feel exactly that, and cannot yet explain why.

The theology is entirely in there. Abstract and prophetic art has direct biblical precedent, and the case for it goes back further than most people expect.

Why do some Christians question abstract art?

The suspicion of abstract Christian art has a serious foundation: the Reformed tradition extended the second commandment's prohibition on graven images to all visual representations claiming to depict the divine. If God cannot be seen, he should not be painted. It is a concern with genuine history behind it. Christian iconography does include cases where veneration crossed into idolatry, and the Reformers were not responding to nothing.

But the argument against figurative representation of God is not an argument against abstraction. Abstract painting does not claim to show God's face. It works through form, energy, colour, and texture, making no claim to contain or represent the divine at all.

That is the distinction the second commandment draws: images that claim to hold or depict God fall within it; work that declares something about his character through form and energy does not. Different objects, addressed by different rules.

For a thorough commentary on the second commandment and its historical application, see David Guzik's Enduring Word commentary on Exodus 20.

What did God commission for the Tabernacle and Temple?

Exodus 31:3–4 describes what God did with Bezalel: he filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all kinds of skills, to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze. The Spirit's filling encompassed every kind of skill, and what God directed him to make was expressive, non-literal, symbolic work.

The inner curtains were woven with cherubim: celestial beings, not human faces. The mercy seat was hammered from a single piece of gold. The high priest's robe was hemmed with alternating pomegranates and gold bells, the pomegranate being a consistent symbol of covenant abundance throughout the Old Testament. In every case, God was filling his holiest space with work that pointed beyond itself through form and symbol rather than through representation. The Spirit-filled craftsman was given the skills to do that, and the brief to use them.

Solomon built the Temple four centuries later. 1 Kings 6:29 (NIV) records the walls: "On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers."

Palm trees and open flowers, not portraits or narrative scenes. Psalm 92:12 calls the righteous to flourish like a palm tree; open flowers spoke of life and renewal throughout the ancient Near East. These were not decorative choices but symbolic declarations in the holiest building in Israel's history, commissioned by God and executed by Spirit-filled craftsmen. Abstract and prophetic work has always stood in sacred space.

For further study on Bezalel and the Tabernacle, see David Guzik's Enduring Word commentary on Exodus 31.

What can abstract art do that figurative art cannot?

There is something figurative Christian art struggles to do: leave room. A painting of the crucifixion tells you what to see and how to feel. It guides interpretation, instructs theology, closes the meaning before you have arrived at it yourself, and there is real value in that. But for a buyer who already carries a season, a question, or a weight they have not yet named, that closed meaning can leave them standing outside the painting rather than inside it.

The person who stands in front of an abstract prophetic work and feels something they cannot immediately explain is not having a lesser experience. They are having a more personal one. The painting holds space for something specific to them that the maker could not have known and did not need to know. Prophetic work opens space that cannot be pre-filled.

Romans 11:33 frames it: "How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out." Abstract art does not try to trace those paths. It opens space where the viewer brings their own season, their own question, their own need. The same is true of wildlife painting: the Elephant in the Ngorongoro Crater does not tell you what to feel. She carries a quality the viewer encounters without being directed toward it.

What does this prophetic art carry?

Force Unbound was painted in a season of being underestimated, misunderstood, and miscalculated: of having people look straight at what you carry and still not see it. It is prophetic art in the most precise sense, painted in prayer, carrying a declaration over the person who receives it.

A bull does not negotiate or hedge. The energy in this painting, layered texture and raw mark making, releases in one direction: not with rage, but with the certainty of something that can no longer be held back. It is a painting about a specific kind of force, the kind that belongs to a person who has been seen as less than what they carry and is done accepting that reading of themselves. Its companion, Set Ablaze, carries a different but related declaration: the fire that came to rest on each person at Pentecost and does not leave.

For the positioning of this work within the African contemporary art market, read Why African Prophetic Art Occupies a Space No One Else Is In.

Force Unbound is available now as a one-of-a-kind original at $7,400 AUD with free worldwide shipping. Set Ablaze, painted from the experience of fire that comes to rest on each person and does not leave (Acts 2:3; John 14:16), is available now at $7,800 AUD. Canvas prints of both paintings release in late May 2026. Use code FIRST15 for 15% off your first order.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Exodus 31 records God filling Bezalel with his Spirit to make artistic designs for the Tabernacle: woven cherubim, hammered gold, alternating pomegranates. Solomon's Temple walls were carved all around with palm trees and open flowers. God directed expressive, non-literal design into his holiest spaces from the beginning, and the craftsmen who made it were Spirit-filled to do so.

Yes. Paul defines the purpose of the prophetic gift as strengthening, encouraging, and comfort for the one who receives it (1 Corinthians 14:3). That verse addresses spoken prophecy, but the principle extends to visual work: any piece made in prayer, carrying a specific declaration over the person who receives it, functions prophetically. Force Unbound carries such a declaration. The medium is a bull on canvas rather than spoken words. That does not make it less prophetic.

The Reformed tradition applied the second commandment's prohibition on graven images to non-representational art. The concern has integrity. But the commandment applies to images that claim to represent or contain God, not to work that declares a truth about his character through form and energy. The Tabernacle and Temple both demonstrate that God himself commissioned the latter.

A 122 x 122 cm one-of-a-kind original. A bull tearing through layered texture and raw mark making. A prophetic vision that arrived in a season of being underestimated, misunderstood, and miscalculated. For the person who recognises what it carries.

The Abstract Collection currently includes two one-of-a-kind originals: Force Unbound at $7,400 AUD and Set Ablaze at $7,800 AUD. Canvas prints of both paintings release in late May 2026.

The person whose fire has not gone out even when they wanted it to. Acts 2:3 describes tongues of fire coming to rest on each person specifically, not as background warmth but as a targeted and deliberate presence. John 14:16 gives the promise that goes with it: that presence does not leave.

Written by Kudzi, Art By Kudzi — artbykudzi.com

Kudzi (Kudzai) is a Zimbabwean-born, Melbourne-based artist and the founder of Art By Kudzi. He creates prophetic and contemporary Christian art rooted in scripture, prayer, and personal testimony. His work is held in private collections worldwide.