Wounded Light: Sacred Art in the Neon City

Artist Joseph Malham will offer reflections on his work during an Opening Night Reception on Friday, August 22 at 5pm. The event will take place outside the Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful, located in the Cross Tower Room at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

All are invited to this evening of art, faith, and conversation.

This fall, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary is honored to present Wounded Light: Sacred Art in the Neon City, an exhibition of iconographic art by Chicago-based artist Joseph Malham.

Many of the works in Wounded Light are created with found and distressed materials such as discarded wood boards, aged canvases, and other repurposed surfaces that bear the mark of time and loss. These surfaces became sacred ground themselves serving as witness to both suffering and transformation. Created during a period of profound global isolation, these imperfect and wounded objects reflect a core truth: that even in our brokenness, we are capable to reflect light where divine radiance breaks through the fractured, the forgotten, and the forsaken.

For over two decades, Malham has engaged deeply in both the artistic and theological dimension of sacred image making. As an artist in residence at St. Gregory the Great Church in Chicago, he has not only created sacred icons but also led workshops, retreats, and lectures across the country, fostering a renewed understanding of iconography as a living spiritual practice. Malham fuses ancient iconographic traditions with randomly encountered object – the rubble and refuse of everyday life – salvaged from the alleys, streets, and shadows of Chicago’s urban wilderness.

At the heart of Wounded Light is the Heroes of Faith & Justice series, which honors lay and religious men and women from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds who have witnessed Christ through acts of justice, mercy, and service to the people of God in Chicago. For Malham, the city is not merely a backdrop but sacred ground. He writes “Chicago was the soil of their ministry but faith was the seed.”

In addition to his visual work, Malham is the author of four books. In 2015 Malham he was awarded the Bishop Quarter Award, by Cardinal Cupich in recognition of his services to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

This exhibition invites viewers into a contemplative encounter with the holiness, revealed not in perfection but in the luminous and enduring presence that emerges through what is wounded, weathered, and redeemed.

Wounded Light will be on view throughout August and into mid-September 2025, with works displayed across all three floors of Garrett’s main building.

For more information about Joseph Malham’s work, please visit www.trinityicons.com.