His project will make history.
After his successful solo exhibition, The Lord Was There, which featured a collection of religious paintings earlier this year in New York, Christian portrait artist Zimou Tan is now aiming to make his work more widely accessible to people of faith. To achieve this, he launched a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday to fund a special art book that will highlight his faith-inspired pieces.
The Kickstarter campaign seeks to raise $37,500 to cover the production costs of the book, which will showcase Tan’s artwork centered on moments of faith, hope, and the presence of God. Donors will receive various rewards, including signed copies of the book and original pieces of artwork from Tan, based on the level of support. Tan explained that this collection reflects his personal spiritual journey through Scripture, aiming to bring biblical scenes to life with visuals that evoke the depth of God’s story. His goal is for the art to inspire viewers to experience familiar Bible passages in a new light and to feel God’s presence through his work.
Tan, an award-winning fine artist known for his mastery in portrait and figurative painting, shared several pieces from his religious portfolio during the The Lord Was There exhibition. Some of the works included pieces inspired by Bible passages such as Ezekiel 37:1-10 (“Valley of Dry Bones”), Revelation 5:5 and Isaiah 53:7 (“The Lion, the Lamb, and the King”), and Matthew 4:1-11 (“Temptations”), among others. Each piece captures a specific moment in Scripture, reflecting Tan’s deep connection to his faith.
One of the pieces that sparked conversation was Temptations, which portrays Jesus’ spiritual journey as described in Matthew 4:1–11. In this piece, Tan presents a more culturally Westernized image of Jesus, which led to a discussion about the ongoing debate regarding the physical appearance of Jesus. Tan acknowledged this debate, emphasizing that he doesn’t wish to impose his personal interpretation of Jesus’ appearance. He explained that he has never painted a direct portrait of Jesus because he feels that God is too vast to be confined to a single image. Instead, Tan often portrays Jesus in subtle ways, like in shadows or partial images, to reflect the idea that Jesus may appear differently depending on one’s cultural context.