This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

OREM - Once upon a time, James Christensen thought church was one thing and art something else.

And so the young Mormon illustrator went his way, painting gnomes, fairies, flying fish and other assorted creatures. He peopled his artistic universe with hunchbacked everymen and dandies weighed down by layer upon layer of complicated clothing. Some figures adrift together in odd-sized boats or danced on a checkerboard playing field. Owls led the way and winged-angels attended them.

His creations were whimsical and ironic, metaphorical and magical. But spiritual?

Now, at 66, Christensen looks back and sees no visible line between his faith and art.

"When you live your religion, it permeates your life and influences what you choose to do and not to do," the artist said this week.

Everyone else, of course, will immediately see the connection in his new book he wrote with Kate Horowitz, Men and Angels: The Art of James C. Christensen.

Published by Greenwich Workshop Press in Connecticut, this oversized book is the first major retrospective of Christensen's art in 15 years. It features more than 300 works from his experimental art of the 1970s to his award-winning pieces of today.

The book displays the artist's wide-ranging spirituality from his satirical images to his "winged-wordplay," to his biblical scenes and figures and angelic portraits. It includes his playful attempt to imitate the Northern Renaissance masters and their depiction of Catholic saints and sinners. His classically inspired art reflects the influence of Albrecht Durer, John William Waterhouse, and Jan van Eyck and defies categorization.

Consider the piece, "Touching the Hem of God," based on a New Testament story of a woman who Jesus healed when she anonymously touched his robe. It is an expressive rather than literal retelling.

"There's no crowd and no Jesus," he says. "I was interested in the sublime moment of faith, where everything else goes away."

Christensen never uses the word, "Mormon" in the book or refers to his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Still, the Mormon themes are clear -- humans are eternal beings and their purpose is to aspire to holiness by being better, kinder people; faith in the face of hardship; the importance of community; and the individual responsibility to combat negativity and darkness.

Though he delights in puncturing the vanity and silliness of earthly behavior, Christensen's art isn't "exploitative, confrontational or negative," he writes in the book. "There is enough darkness in the world, and I want my art to serve a more constructive purpose."

For example, instead of the 16th century "ship of fools" motif used to indict a "circus of lost and misguided characters who neither knew nor cared where they were headed," Christensen's boatloads of bizarre figures are drawn with affection.

"My intention is not to condemn anyone," he writes in the book. "As far as strange passengers go - well, we're all a little weird."

Christensen learned his own "weirdness" while growing up as a Mormon in Culver City, Calif. That's where he met his wife of 40 plus years, Carole, who was in the same ward.

He served a two-year LDS mission to Uruguay, then studied briefly at the University of California Los Angeles before graduating from Brigham Young University. After that, he taught at the LDS Church-owned school for 21 years, while displaying his works at one-man shows in the West and the Northwest and in publications including Spectrum, American Illustration Annual and Japan's Outstanding American Illustrators. His art has been showcased in five books, including the best-seller, The Art of James Christensen: A Journey of the Imagination. In 2002, he joined five other artists in painting murals for the restored LDS temple in Nauvoo, Ill. He is currently working on several book projects aimed at a Mormon audience and has become a popular speaker at informal church gatherings.

David Ericson, a Mormon fine art dealer in Salt Lake City, appreciates all the symbolic and spiritual elements in Christensen's art.

"A lot of times people are caught up the details and miss the bigger point," Ericson says. "Most of what he is trying to do is make us aware of the unseen role that God plays in our lives."

Mormonism has the "most liberal, most encompassing theology in the world, yet in practice, it might be the most conservative," Ericson says. "The balance between theory and practice is the dichotomy that keeps Mormonism so interesting."

But Christensen's appeal reaches well beyond the LDS faithful.

"We look at Jim as a great American artist who happens to be Mormon. The messages in his book are even beyond our Judeo-Christian heritage," says Wendy Wentworth, Christensen's publisher. "They go to the core of the human experience. People who don't know his religion understand it from their own unique spiritual perspective."

That's fine with the artist.

"I do not hide what I am but I don't ride the Mormon horse, either," he says. "I am always surprised when I stick in what I see as some LDS theme how many others find in it a universal idea. We don't have a corner on truth, beauty or direction in life."