Tuesday, June 30, 2026
8-9 pm ET / 5-6 pm PT
Free registration required
Join Jesuit Media Lab for a live discussion with Nick Leeper on the importance of play and imagination in sacred art. Ignatian spirituality teaches us that we can find God in all things but how do we engage with that expansive interpretive lens when viewing sacred art?
Nick’s “Pop Icons” challenge audiences to broaden their imaginations surrounding what constitutes sacred or religious art. Uniting traditional religious symbolism and contemporary visual culture, Nick’s work invites the audience to think playfully about analogies and paradoxes that we use to symbolize the sacred. In our conversation, we will explore how to both engage with and create art that encourages this imaginative play and furthers the dialogue between Creator and creation regarding what is considered sacred in art.
View more of Nick’s art here and join us June 30 for a discussion facilitated by Alli Bobzien.
Image above: Madonna and Child (Mater divinae lucis)
Nicholas Kerestan Leeper, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic, teacher and contemporary iconographer who creates Pop Icons, a body of work that blends traditional religious symbolism with contemporary visual culture. His work explores how the transcendent is made present through what Pseudo-Dionysius calls “dissimilar similarities,” or “dissemblance,” where symbols point toward the ineffable by means of analogy and paradox rather than direct representation.
Alli Bobzien is a freelance writer, a mother of two spunky girls, and a recent graduate of Fuller Seminary, where she achieved her master’s in theology. Cherishing a love of everyday spirituality, women in scripture, and the healing power of connection through words, she seeks to craft essays and prayers that engage and uplift. You can follow her work through subscribing to her Substack The Pondering Heart.
Eric Clayton is the deputy director of communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States and the award-winning author of “Where Wonder Leads: Findin God Through Fairy Tales, Myth and Contemplative Prayer,” “Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness,” and more. Follow his writing at ericclaytonwrites.com.
