Ever since my youth I have been strongly drawn to the imagery of the Crucifixion. This fascination led me to explore the theme through my artwork during my student years. This continues to be one of my major interests in art.

Among the numerous depictions of this dramatic event, Paul Gauguin’s “The Yellow Christ” immediately struck me as a powerful and unforgettable image.

For years, I felt an intense desire to create my own artistic response to this painting. In 2011, I finally embarked on a diptych dedicated to Yellow Christ. The diptych was showcased as a finalist in the 2011 Blake Prize for Religious Art and the third piece was conceived a bit later, thus forming a triptych titled “Yellow Christ Resurrection Triptych.”

In 2013 I had a chance to visit Pont-Aven in Brittany, France where Yellow Christ was painted and the little nearby chapel with the wooden Crucifix being the inspiration to Gauguin for this seminal work. Retracing the artist’s footsteps and revisiting his creations, I would finally reach the Marquesas where Gauguin has left his body. His artistic legacy, however, is with us forever.

The imagery of the Yellow Christ is still enormously powerful for me and I keep using it occasionally in my own art, incorporating it in unexpected contexts.

Michael Galovic, 2023