We are very excited to launch a new Summer book group, a project initiated by Morphe friend Isaiah Morris. We will be reading Bezalel's Body by Katie Kresser. Contact Isaiah for more details: isaiah@isaiahmorris.co

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Bezalel's Body: The Death of God and the Birth of Art by Katie Kresser

'When God died, art was born. With Christ's crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the human imagination began to be remade. In Bezalel's Body: The Death of God and the Birth of Art, Harvard-trained art historian Katie Kresser locates the historical roots of the thing we call art. She weaves together centuries of art history, philosophy, theology, psychology, and art theory to uncover the deep spiritual foundations of this cultural form. Why do some people pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a single painting? Why are art museums almost like modern temples? The answer lies in Christian theology and the earliest forms of Christian image making. By examining how cutting-edge art trends reveal age-old spiritual dynamics, Kresser helps recover an ancient tradition with vital relevance for today.'

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Isaiah Morris is a London based, Australian born, multimedia artist, curator, and researcher.

The experience of aisthesis, the imagination’s formation, and how these change our perception of the Self, the World, and God, occupies much of his thought. He pursues this in three modalities: Image, Word, and People. (And when not, he’s probably making Creme Brûlée.)

He’s shown projection and light-based installations across Australia, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom, often in public & non-traditional spaces. His concern is with how these environments affect the viewer's perception of what is real and not, blurring the lines between tangible and ethereal. Often, he collaborates with global streetwear brands, artists, music festivals, and not-for-profits, for audiences of 100 to 50,000+ people. He’s curated over 40 music events to support emerging artists (mainly via New Kids) and, in 2017, he founded the No Vacancy Window to create exhibiting opportunities for video and motion artists.

Isaiah holds a Master’s in Christianity and the Arts (with Distinction) from King’s College, London and the National Gallery. He is an Emerging Leader at the Centre for Cultural Witnessand a Bill Snelson Young Ecumenist.

Currently, his research concerns New Media Art’s theological aesthetics, Australian Pentecostalism, and the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (of which his dissertation on Balthasar won the Relton Prize for Christian Doctrine).You can read his inconsistent meanderings at (re)figure.