Son of Mary and Joseph

I consider myself as an artist belonging to the group of new realists where the human being is looked upon in a new light and painted strongly figurative. The meaning of Clair Obscure, in Italian chiaroscuro, is light in the darkness. Less light, less color. That is some of the reasons why I work with plain and few earth colors and very seldom part from that rule unless it is absolutely necessary. I've never forgot that unwritten direction and it was useable in oil, watercolor and charcoal as well. One of them was: "Don't be too tough with you pencil when you draw. Not too much information when you catch the line. Do not underestimate your audience".

                                                                                   Jon Bøe Paulsen. Oslo. Norway         

Jesus Christ, son of Mary and Joseph. The man from Nazareth who was first whipped and then crucified to death over 2000 years ago because he stood for something that his contemporaries perceived as threatening. History   repeat itself and the list is long even though those who suffered a similar fate were not exalted. They were human. Abraham Lincoln, Emiliano Zapata, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, Robert Kennedy, Boris Nemtsov to name a few. I myself am not a religious person and think it has been an important approach because I primarily wanted to paint a historical picture. I wanted to portray this man as first and foremost a descendant of ordinary people. Will such a portrait then make him a less important figure from the past? Will he not be more like one of us? Jesus, the King of the Jews, claimed to be the Son of God, but are we not all?