I always wanted to paint Jesus, but this subject must be one of the most popular in the history of art, so the challenge I set myself was, how could my painting could be different? Modern paintings of Jesus seem too twee, too much like a hippy rock star, and cliched. But the traditional European versions tended to portray Jesus as a European, some even as a blond north European. The icons of the Orthodox churches are to my eye, just wonderful, but they have very strong conventions of how Jesus and the other saints should be portrayed, which I did not want to follow. I wanted to portray Jesus as more ‘period correct’, so I gave him a Middle Eastern appearance, forsook the Renaissance tradition of him wearing red and blue, and gave him a simple striped prayer shawl. I wanted to suggest a halo, show his blessing hand, and a gilded prayer book. I have included the IC XC inscription identifying him as Jesus Pantocrator.