The absence of religious belief is commonplace in Australasia today but it is a relatively recent phenomenon. Census data reveals most of us over the age of 25 were raised in some kind of religion so it follows the loss of faith must be an experience common to many.
 

The absence of religious belief is commonplace in Australasia today but it is a relatively recent phenomenon. Census data reveals most of us over the age of 25 were raised in some kind of religion so it follows the loss of faith must be an experience common to many.
 
Yet this journey from loss of childhood belief through to the rationalism of adult certainty has not appeared in our collective artistic consciousness despite being a widely shared and potentially profound transition. Perhaps the experience is still a little rawer than we would like to admit?
 
Wellington artist Shane McGrath was born in Australia and raised a Roman Catholic in Melbourne’s dominant presence of Catholicism in the mixture of 'New Australians' emigrating from post-war Europe.

 For McGrath it was hugely formative:   “It was my world as a child, particularly in the extensive Italian communities I grew up with. As was expected I was an Altar boy, into my teens, even being asked if I had thought of joining the priesthood, to which I simply said 'I liked girls too much'. Catholicism shaped my upbringing, good and bad, and was never questioned”

His new exhibition; At the End of Play addresses religious faith and the indoctrination of children by the inheritance of religion. Opening at the Bartley and Company on the 16th of August McGrath’s work uses deliberately archaic and nostalgic tools of play like toys and games to look at belief in an afterlife, and the need for that belief, from the perspective of someone who has lost his faith and is trying to articulate the journey.
 
Previous work exhibited at Te Aro’s Toi Poneke Gallery as the inaugural Deblyn artist in residence and in the critically acclaimed Sculpture on The Gulf group show on Waiheke Island have included many objects of flight and play referencing McGrath’s reaction against his upbringing.

The Bartley and Company show may be a good time to check to see the artist’s work before he buries his head into preparation for his next show – a prestigious New Zealand Sculpture show at the City Gallery in 2012.