Art and faith were once such happy bedfellows. In the past, religious institutions acted as willing patrons and backed the careers of painters, sculptors, poets and more. Much has changed. According to the 2001 StatsCan census, almost five million Canadians identify as having “no religion,” a 40 percent increase since 1991. The modern museum may be called a secularized cathedral for art, but many artists have pondered faith directly, on their own terms. The spiritual undertones in Claude Tousignant’s search for “pure sensation” come to mind—or Emily Carr’s theosophical explorations. Below is a selection of contemporary artists who continue to mine this ancient vein.

FASTWÜRMS

Creemore- and Toronto-based Fastwürms develop interactive architectures, performances and visual artworks that forge alliances with queer communities. Gusset Nation includes a tangled web of G-strings stretched into pentagrams, while Blood Clock features tool racks of sex toys, horseshoes, sickles and ...