Interview with Chris Lewis, BARITUS Catholic Illustrator

A series of questions and answers

Recently, I corresponded with Chris Lewis, the Catholic illustrator and owner of BARITUS, a Catholic illustration studio devoted to creating works of art that “promote the Good, True and Beautiful of the Catholic Faith.”

I have this rad poster Chris made hanging up in my office:

Look me in the eye and tell me that this poster doesn’t make you want to be more temperate, kind, and patient.

My wife recently got me this BARITUS St. Joseph Terror of Demons prayer card:

These demons are simultaneously terrifying and terrified, hence the power of St. Joseph.

As a friend recently put it, Chris’ work is “so heavy metal.” I would agree. His work turns up the volume to 11 and builds a series of power chords to a crescendo. I can look at something Chris has made and be inspired to run through several layers of dry wall or stick my hand into a bucket filled with copperheads. If I were to take the leap and get a neck tattoo, I would commission Chris to design the piece.

All kidding aside, Chris is truly a talented artist, and thus I was delighted when he agreed to answer a few of my questions about his faith, his work, generative AI, and more.

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Q&A w/ Chris Lewis

Justin Bonanno (JB): How’d you get into design? What advice would you give to aspiring artists who want to pursue a similar path? 

Chris Lewis (CL): I’ve put more of a focus on traditional illustration for most of my life, but when it came time to go to school and do something professionally I wasn’t quite sure how to get my foot in the door. What was really in demand at the time was graphic design, and it seemed the best way to enter into a career still doing something creative, and so I completed a degree in Graphic Design and then went to work in apparel and retail industries for 17 years. During that time I would often do freelance illustration work to scratch that itch of a deep down love of traditional drawing though.

I would say for artists it is important to think about what gifts God has given you, and what you really love doing, and then figure out a goal that you can objectively achieve and put the work in to accomplish that goal. It doesn’t come easy, which is why doing what you love will help propel you through any challenges. They won’t be things that deter you, but instead encourage you to keep growing on that path, and ultimately that’s the key, particularly in creative fields where the work produced is intimately attached to your love for that subject.

JB: Can you tell me a little about your faith? Were you a cradle Catholic? A convert? Which devotions, saints, and religious practices appeal to you most? 

CL: I was raised in a nominally Christian, non-denominational family. We talked a lot about being Christian, but that never really manifested itself in our lives any differently than most of my secular friends other than the occasionally going to church on Sundays. As I entered into my teen years, I started to have deep questions about why we believed what we believed, and the reliability of the Gospels in the first place. I found that in that particular Christian tradition, there were no answers, and so unfortunately I strayed from that nominal reflexive “faith” into secular materialism and remained there for years until I met my wife in my early adulthood who was Catholic.

I began attending Mass with her, asking questions, and pulling the threads that intrigued me in my teenage years, only this time around I found there were answers rooted in history and the Catholic tradition that not only made sense of Scripture and united the Old and New Testaments cohesively but also had a firm foundation in history and an unbroken lineage that I could trace and depend on. In addition, I began to understand the Catholic teachings on the soul, human nature and morality, and these made sense of so many questions about our purpose and how to live. I was thoroughly convinced of the Truth of the Catholic Church, was baptized and married into the Church early in the 2000s.

JB: Can you recommend any books that Catholic artists ought to read to help them practice their craft?

CL: I have not been one who has spent any significant time trying to learn the craft through books. In fact the experience and skills I have developed over the years have been doing through practicing every day, and then of course in my career as a graphic designer learning to define creative problems and then solve them in the hundreds of projects I worked on over the years.

I don’t think there is much comparison between diving into work and just getting started and trying to learn it through reading. For some that may help, but I’ve always been too short on attention span for that and anxious to just start doing the work and learn by trying, failing, and trying again until I developed the skills I was trying to work towards.

That being said, I’ve had plenty of favorite artists who I would look at since a young age who would always inspire me to do my own work, whether Gustave Dore, Arthur Rackham, Willy Pogany, Norman Rockwell to name a few.

JB: Did any particular illustrators influence your style or approach to design? If so, who? How?

CL: Other than just having some favorites as I previously mentioned, I was really focused on trying to develop my own style over the years. Most of that came naturally—for example, my illustration style is simply what happens when I put pencil to paper, or tablet pen to tablet. I suppose some of that has been inspired by types of art I have appreciated over the years, such as the traditional illustration work that was often found in classics, or the woodcut engravings used very early on in the printing process and often seen in old Catholic published works. These always fascinated me, and I suppose some sort of amalgamation of these things probably played a role in how my own style developed. I did find though when I stopped trying to draw like other people, and instead focused on the subjects and stories I wanted to tell in my own art, I started to draw more freely and naturally, and began to fine-tune my work to achieve that end which ultimately shaped my style over years of practicing.

I still like to try new things and am constantly playing with new ways to draw. Since moving to digital my work has developed a more painterly process, where I often lay down large areas of color for shapes I want to draw and then begin to carve and chip away at them to form the images in my mind, finalizing everything with detailed line work.

JB: What is your take on generative AI, especially as it pertains to design? Will it destroy art?

CL: I am by no means an expert on AI, but I find it problematic both in the spiritual and material dimensions. Firstly, I think a large part of art is playing a creative role in the creativity of God Himself. It is a uniquely human gift that we are able to take ideas and form matter in such a way that we can create images, and within that our unique soul is at work at some level interacting with creation. The work we create is the deepest expression of the soul God gave us and a special ability we are endowed with that gives glory to God. AI skips this entire process, and I think suffers from what a large part of our modern activities suffer from—in producing immediate results but without the work or struggle to get there. I find this part of the process of creating to be greatly sacrificial, or even redemptive, and for me it’s not about the result as much as it is that experience of creating that really defines being an artist.

We lost a lot of our hands-on connection with reality and creation itself through the industrial revolution, and the work of human hands was largely replaced by the work of machines in which we became subservient. We can argue about the benefits that revolution afforded us, and there are many, but we also lost in a real way a part of our humanity. I see AI as the second attack on that humanity, but this time rather from the material dimension, it is one that replaces our human intellect and passes the creative process to machines. We don’t know where that process comes from, how it works, or what the machine intends to create, and so I find the work soulless myself. Only God can create by speaking, and yet AI seems to usurp some level of the gift of creation by allowing us to simply speak and create, and that seems like a mockery or mimicry of true authentic creativity where the full expression of the human and soul are at work in a cooperative action with God when we create with both intellect and hands engaged in achieving some artistic vision.

JB: What is your dream project? Do you have anything that, given the time and the money to complete, you’d love to make (e.g., paint a 100-foot-tall mural of the Prodigal Son, etc.)? 

CL: Without a doubt it would be to publish a book. I find the landscape of deep, meaningful, profound, beautiful books, especially for young Catholics, to be pretty sparse. I have many ideas, but sadly not a lot of time; however, this is a goal of mine which I hope to work towards in the coming years, God-willing.

JB: Where can people go if they want to learn more about or purchase your work?

CL: The best place to connect with me is either through my website at barituscatholic.com or through my shop where I sell my work at barituscatholic.etsy.com or any of the social media platforms (at)barituscatholic where I post work and thoughts on various Catholic subjects.

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More about Chris:

Chris Lewis, Catholic Illustrator and Owner of BARITUS

Working in a digital medium, Chris is dedicated to bringing the Catholic Faith to life through illustration in a way that is reverent and true to the rich artistic legacy of the Catholic Church, with a unique modern style that resonates with the faithful today. As a convert to the Catholic Faith, Chris has a love for illustration and a professional background of 18 years in marketing and graphic design.

The founding of BARITUS came to fruition for Chris through a parallel journey of discovering the truth of Christianity through Catholicism and a return to illustration after many years of focusing on his graphic design career. The two paths converged after a series of powerful intellectual and spiritual conversions, and the inspiration for establishing an illustration-based Catholic studio and brand focused on sharing the Catholic Faith through art was born. Chris has worked with Ascension Press, Word on Fire Ministries, and many more.