Original Christianity, as practiced by the Church Fathers, always placed such symbols of faith facing East. The operand word is toward and not to. We pray facing toward the East, looking toward the symbol of faith, pray to God.
Having said that, I have seen icons and paintings depicting an old man with a beard, Jesus sitting to his right, and the Holy Ghost (in the form of a dove) above them. I have seen it in the Greek Orthodox church in St. Augustine, Florida, and again on some religious brochures. That is aboslute blasphemy! Just who is that old man with a long white beard? The Father? The Orthodox theology is based on apophatic reasoning -- which states, among other things that God is ineffable, uncircumscribed, eternal, ever-present, and so on. For anyone to draw God the Father in a human form, with a logn white beard (also seen in some Catholic paintings) is one certified blasphemy par excellence! And the priest of that Greek church in St. Augustine should know better, as should his congregation.
That icon is pure heresy because it depicts three separate entities, as physical beings in heaven. Nothing could be more theologically heretical than that! It is utterly pagan and blasphemous.
But those religions that don't use icons or statues do not guarantee that individual believers are not forming their own "mental icons" that could be equally corrupt except that no one will know but the beholder. The only difference is that in the original Christian Churches (in other words pre-Luther), individual corruption is evident from their paintings or sculptures and could therefore be corrected. In those religions where depiction remains in the eye of the beholder, the heretical images remain unaltered.