By Mary Lackie

If Christ were on earth today, He would find Himself in the rat race, said artist Bruce Hafley, who chose the white shirt as a symbol of Christ in the modern world.

Hafley’s symbolic studies of Christ are included in his exhibit of still-lifes this month at Galerie Illien, 18 Peachtree Place, N.E. Using an everyday object—the white shirt, the paintings evoke episodes in the life of Christ.

“Christ identified Himself with the common man,” Hafley said, “and is interested in the problems of modern man, however humiliating or degrading they may be—the routine, the pressure of conformity that is sometimes boring as hell”.

Hafley said he wanted to do a painting of Christ, but the modern artist does not have the same mentality or religious tradition of a Reubens. “Nor does the sad, wistful figures of Christ with a scraggily beard strike me as Christ at all. Christ is not a period piece.”

Hafley admits that he is not preoccupied with symbols. “Symbols get dated—a white shirt 50 years from now may be non-existent. But what have we got in the modern world that would be a good symbol for the Crown of Thorns? A nervous breakdown? I don’t know.”

In the 20^th century, even many worlds have lost their original meanings. The world, ‘holy’ for example, for most people, is associated with Church. They never apply the word to nature, Hafley said.

In this modern, materially well-fixed society, religion does not flourish. “I wouldn’t suggest people get poor, but I think they should be more aware of their capacity as human beings,” the artist said.

There’s a painter under every bush today, but an artist is always aware of what’s going on in the world, always looking for a certain order and expressing it through form,” said Hafley.

He said, the weakness in art today is that in their preoccupation with originality, artists haven’t concerned themselves with expression. “The attitude that ‘we’ve go to do something new every year’ smacks of fashion of Saks Fifth Avenue windows”, Hafley said. “I sure don’t want to improve anybody—I am just trying to find a new direction.’

Some comments on the new direction in his symbols of Christ:

“I don’t want to use a cross. Some theologians might disagree but we really don’t know what the cross looked like. Any kind of lumber nailed together represents a cross.”

--“I imagine Jesus had to do an awful lot of talking from dawn to dusk. That’s why I put the telephone right on His chest—like modern man.”

--On the Ascensions: “I thought it looked elegant. It is an old traditional notion that Heaven is straight up—who knows—when we die, we may just go zoop.”

Hafley, with his English wife, and two children, recently returned to Atlanta after eight years’ study in Holland and Europe. Asked if the children distract him while he paints, Hafley said, “No. They are noisy, but I like that.”