Fragments of Light

Monthly Archives: November 2016

Thank Offering

When an artist’s work is filled with light and joy, the works themselves become an offering.
Known as an “artist of light,” Father Kim En Joong, an internationally renowned liturgical artist, has completed numerous stained-glass windows for the restoration of European churches.

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Kim En Joong, Composition.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. —Psalm 100

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Kim En Joong, Pentecost.

And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. —Revelation 21:23

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Kim En Joong, stained glass window, the church of St Julien de Brioude, France.

“It’s in the vibration of the colors that what can never be represented must show through.” —Kim En Joong

Artist Bio
A Dominican monk, Kim En Joong, (b. 1940), served in the South Korean army until 1963. Later he taught drawing at a Catholic seminary in Seoul and subsequently converted to Catholicism in 1967. Shortly after that he traveled to Switzerland to study art history, theology and metaphysics. He completed his first stained glass window in 1989, which was a turning point in his career. Uncompromisingly modern, Joong’s designs are a meditation on the human condition — between a profane and spiritual world.