Presence Obscured

This long-term project explores the shifting culture of Christianity in the American South and my own experience of faith. It was during a horrific pregnancy that I first felt as if God was still there somewhere, but busy in another room.

Even as I recall times when I felt drenched in possibility and light, that sense of presence obscured remains. Despite these feelings of loss, I often find peace when I enter an empty sanctuary, a space hushed and full of the echoes of conversations and prayers which have lingered through the years. I sit and listen to the creaks, touch the hymnals frayed from use, and experience a depth of solitude. Photography becomes meditation.

I step outside and see reminders of God everywhere: on bumper stickers, yard signs, and telephone poles. In the wider landscape, out under the sky, I feel small and begin to think we are like little children wearing tinsel halos and catawampus wings.

As I get in my truck, the news pops up on my phone and I cringe as I hear religion has once again been used by politicians to cause harm. That is not the god I want to find.

I turn down a red dirt road and see closed doors and curtained windows of an abandoned church. Will it be lovingly restored or will it be forgotten and crumble to the ground? I want it to be remembered as it is now, these weathered walls, this door, that tilting steeple. There is something here, resilience, memory, a whisper coated in peeling paint. I don’t know the story of this place, but I see my own story in it. “The Song of Songs” comes to mind. It is a love poem, a story of adoration, searching, and wistfulness.

Through these photographs, I share what I perceive as an ethereal sense of presence alongside themes of longing, loss, dissonance, and hope. The project is personal, yet also an open-ended offering to the viewer to ponder their own experiences of faith or doubt in the midst of trauma or crises.

(The photographs above are a small selection from an extensive body of work that began in 2017 and continues into 2025)

©Karen Bullock 2025

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