Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Xijia (Romee) Lai

Abiding in Him

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”(John 15:1-5 NIV)

“This work is rooted in the passage from John 15, where Christ describes Himself as the vine and believers as the branches. The painting explores what it means to remain connected—to abide—not as an abstract idea, but as a lived, embodied reality.This understanding is informed by an ongoing personal transformation: a gradual movement from distance toward nearness, from self-reliance toward rootedness. As this connection deepens, there is a perceptible shift—not only in interior life, but in what becomes possible. New capacities emerge, and what once seemed unattainable begins to take form. What is produced is not merely effort-driven, but the result of being sustained by a source beyond oneself.”