Emily Graves spoke with Antony Consiglio from Express Image

Anthony: In the last two years I was working for a Bible college and so part of my job was to be creative in presenting the college. I did a little bit of marketing, publicity, that sort of thing. So I would have used graphics and I would have used pictures to try and promote the college, but then it developed more into a spiritual thing last year. Likewise Ricardo my brother has been working with wood and doing DIY most of his adult life, so we both have a bit of a background experience in it.

Emily: What do you love about it the most?

Anthony: The freedom of being able to do as God shows me to do, with no restraint and no limitation: just being as free as possible to work when I want to work and produce what I want to produce and so it's very free. I love the freedom.

Emily: What is your working process with your brother?

Anthony: We work together all day. We're pretty much best mates as well, so we do hang about a lot and talk about things and it's constantly there on the table, we're always talking about it, so it's never a chore - we never need to set aside time, it's sort of engulfed our whole life.

Emily: This might sound like a really silly question in some ways, but does God really care about art that much?

Anthony: I think so. Certainly He's allowed me to care about art that much; whether He does Himself or not I'm not sure, but definitely He's allowed me to and so that's what I really enjoy. I think God is definitely a creative God. He's definitely inspirational and He's very colourful and unique in that way and so I think it is His expression through me.

Emily: How do people connect with God through the pictures that you guys have been making?

Anthony: It really blesses us to hear people say that not only do they like what they see, but it's touching their heart; something is ministering to them. We really feel this is not just artwork: it is to do with the heart; it's to do with ministering to people. That is our focus: that we want to touch the hearts of people, not just sell my piece of art.

Emily: Give us an example of some of the artwork that you've produced so far.

Anthony: This is probably the best testimony that I've had, it was of a picture of a cross lying on the ground and the cross was beginning to grow grass all over it, so it's beginning to sprout life. There was a woman lying on the cross, just resting on the cross, lying down on the grass. The message was: 'Rest in the work of Jesus; rest in the work of the cross. You are cleansed from your sins. He has brought reconciliation back to God'. This is a real picture of rest. The lady phoned the college and she was telling us that there was oil beginning to come out of the picture. I find that hard to believe: unless you see it, it's kind of hard to believe these things - but she said oil was beginning to run out of the picture. She checked the back of the picture and there was no source of oil or anything like that on the wall: it was definitely coming from the picture. She testified that she was actually healed from a sickness. That to me is difficult to believe, but, at the same time, God is a God of impossibilities and so even though I'm slow to believe that, I still rejoice that these things are happening.

Another example would be the picture of a boat inside: if you can imagine a square room, but the room is filled with water - it's like an ocean inside a room - and there is a boat and it's gently sailing along the water inside this room and it's: 'Jesus brings peace to the storms on the inside of us'. It's a message about the inner turmoil of people, but Jesus can bring rest first and foremost to our heart and then we begin to see the rest on the outside after we find our inner peace with Him first.

Emily: That's great! I went and had a look on your website and I think the one that's jumped out at me the most is the picture of the girl on the swing above the city and it says 'Freedom' underneath it. I love that one. Along with the pictures you use even, as I just said, single words don't you?

Anthony: Yeah because we really do believe that the art and message is for everybody: it's for people who believe in Jesus and people who don't. There's people who have been to our stalls and they've bought pictures that don't necessarily have the Word of God, scripture, quoted on them - but like that one with the swing, everybody can relate to wanting to be free: wanting to try that sort of idea of soaring through the clouds - and everybody can relate to that. But still there's the concept that truth is still within it, so even though it doesn't quote scripture, there's still truth there.