New Art Show at Central

The Fine Arts Ministry Team presents a new art show in the South Entry Hall: Vie de Jesus Mafa (Life of Jesus Mafa). Take a moment to learn more about this awesome new show!

Vie de Jesus Mafa (Life of Jesus Mafa) was an initiative undertaken in the 1970s to help teach the Gospel in Northern Cameroon.

The initiative was spearheaded by French Catholic missionary François Vidil. He worked with Mafa Christian communities in Cameroon to create a catalogue of paintings depicting the life of Jesus as an African man. The idea was to build a resource that would help Mafa people to teach from the Bible in a way that connects with their community.

Father Vidil formed a team of local church leaders, theologians, and an artist, Bénédite de la Roncière, a French illustrator who lived for much of her adult life in West and Central Africa.

The team spent time in Mafa communities, reading Bible passages and getting people to reenact them. Vidil and his team would photograph their reenactments as the artist sketched them. These sketches and photographs became the basis of the final paintings which were rendered by Mme. de la Roncière.

The full collection includes over 60 paintings, depicting virtually every story of the life of Jesus recorded in any of the four Gospels.

This selection of 10 prints from the series comes from the collection of Bethany Lutheran Church, a former ELCA congregation which was located on East Franklin Ave.