Gallery Guide: Quiet Isn’t Always Peace

oil and damar on linen  |  MOCRA collection

Bernard Maisner is regarded internationally as one of the greatest contemporary masters of calligraphy and manuscript illumination. An accomplished painter as well, Maisner brings together materials and design in unexpected ways. He engages texts from diverse, sometimes surprising sources, and arrives at a vibrant compositional and scribal expression rooted in the past but conveyed with a fresh contemporary visual vocabulary. His search for meaning through his art takes him in the direction of the infinite, of opposites, of things mystical and unanswerable. The spiritual dimension, he says, is an appreciation of something that we cannot know. 

This work appeared at the end of a difficult period in the artist’s life, one in which he produced dark paintings with obscured or obliterated scrolls. The texts that had been a central element of Maisner’s work disappeared. This work, then, suggests a new sense of hope and anticipation. The scrolls, though still blank, undulate in anticipation of being written upon. The yellow tones of the canvas recall the gold leaf that is a hallmark of Maisner’s illuminated manuscripts. A stairway in the upper right corner may lead to a scriptorium, the chamber in a medieval monastery where manuscripts were produced.

digital C-print   |    MOCRA collection • a gift of Terrence Dempsey, S.J.

DoDo Jin Ming is one of the first generation of Chinese artists who experienced the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square uprising. A 1988 exhibition of Joseph Beuy’s drawings caused her to abandon a musical career for a life in art. The artist, who now resides in New York City, refers to her photographic work as “dream images that make up the landscape of my soul, my second vision.” 

Jin Ming’s work is situated in the tradition of the sublime in art. The sublime has been understood as something beyond normal experience and perhaps beyond human understanding. The sublime can inspire awe, terror, and danger, and an acute sense of our own creaturehood in the face of forces beyond our power to control.

Jin Ming’s tumultuous seascapes link her in power to the seascapes and avalanches painted by J. M. W. Turner, but in technique they descend from pioneering 19th-century French photographer Gustave Le Gray. Like Le Gray, she blurs the distinction between sky and sea by combining several negatives to create a single print. Art historian James Yood states that Jin Ming presents “the ocean as ominous and revelatory, a spiritual theater of awe and power that by implication renders humans insignificant and trivial.”

collage on paper  |  courtesy of the artist

Born in Tokyo, Junko Chodos grew up in a highly cultured and well-educated family amid the turbulence of World War II. Chodos’ studies in Eastern and Western religion, art, and philosophy and her interest in technology, biology, and the natural environment lend her work a unique global perspective. 

Through collage Chodos combines a density of myriad elements in a barely held stasis. Garan (“Cathedral”) brings East and West together: a garan is a complex of buildings in a Buddhist temple compound, while a cathedral serves as the primary church of a Christian diocese (the Latin word cathedra denotes the chair of the bishop). Knowledge and wisdom, faith and inquiry, sacred and secular, earthy and rarified—both temple and cathedral embrace these varied, and at times contradictory, realities. Every millimeter of this artwork’s surface and every bit of paper adhered to it has been touched by the artist. The result is a feel similar to works by Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning.

sumi ink and gold on hatome paper |  MOCRA collection

The late Oregon artist Robert Kostka said that underlying all of his images is the Japanese principle of ma (間), which he describes (in a reference to dancer-choreographer Martha Graham) as being “in the inner movements and the spaces between the movements.”

The “Solar Barge” series is one of several major series by Kostka. He references the ancient Egyptian belief that upon death, the soul of the pharaoh was carried in the solar barge to rejoin the sun god Ra. The works evoke the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, as well as a sense of journey. The rhythm of light and dark values forms a yin-yang relationship of complementary but interrelated substances, with brilliant dabs of gold burning amidst shadowy ink forms.

C-print with gold leaf and hand painted  |  MOCRA collection

An awareness of current political and social conditions is evident in the work of Guatemalan artist Luis González Palma, one of Latin America’s most significant contemporary photographers. Frequently his subjects are his country’s indigenous Maya, who have endured centuries of violence and indignity but who fiercely preserve and promote their cultural heritage. González Palma’s often dramatically manipulated prints evoke both history and timeless mystery.

This portrait of a young woman of Maya ancestry, surrounded by a corona of light and framed in gold, suggests the stillness and compelling engagement evoked by a traditional icon. It is common in Guatemalan society for indigenous people to cast their eyes down in the presence of someone of a higher class. The artist reverses this situation by having his Maya subjects face directly into the camera and highlighting their eyes. Viewers are thus compelled to meet the gaze (in Spanish, la mirada) of the subjects.

58 prints employing various intaglio techniques  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Mr. Leonard Scheller

French artist Georges Rouault is a singular figure in twentieth-century art. His paintings and prints are marked by a highly distinctive style influenced by his strong affinity for the medieval period as well as his Catholic faith. The 58 prints that constitute “Miserere” were executed in two periods, from 1916 to 1918, and from 1920 to 1927. The project was conceived as a set of 100 large etchings to illustrate a two-volume work titled “Miserere et Guerre” [“Mercy and War”]. Various factors, including strained relations between Rouault and his publisher, Ambroise Vollard, left the project unrealized, and a little over half of the planned images were finally published in 1948. Even so, “Miserere” represents a landmark achievement in the graphic arts and in the religious art of the twentieth century.

The selections in this side chapel gallery resonate with America’s collective experiences of the past year, so strongly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, tensions around racial inequities and the call for social justice reform, and growing economic disparities.

More information about Rouault is found at  No. 28.

(incorporating works created 1977–1992)
mixed media (including wax, acrylic, oil, ZEC, and magna) on canvas  |  courtesy of the artist

The work of Los Angeles artist Craig Antrim reflects his interest in the power of symbols, Jungian psychology, and the importance of mystery. His work was featured in the international exhibition “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985.” For MOCRA’s inaugural exhibition in 1993, Founding Director Terrence Dempsey, S.J., invited Antrim to create an installation for one of the side chapels. 

The resulting “Icon Wall” includes 64 canvases painted by Antrim over a fifteen-year period, most of them featuring crosses. The cross has both Christian meaning and a more universal significance for Antrim, as it refers to the meeting of spirit (the vertical line) and matter (the horizontal line) and the tension that is created at that intersection. Antrim’s varied use of color and surface texture makes a concentrated visual statement in the confines of the side chapel. His installation recalls an iconostasis, a screen covered with icons that separates the sanctuary from the nave in Orthodox Christian churches. Standing in the midst of Antrim’s many panels may give the sensation of being poised before portals opening to dialogue with dimensions beyond the chapel walls, or perhaps with the interior depths of the artist.

mixed media  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Susan Schwalb is one of the foremost figures in the revival of the ancient technique of silverpoint drawing in America. Based in Boston and New York, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, including over fifty solo exhibitions, and has had residencies in the United States and Israel. Her work, ranging from drawings on paper to artist books and paintings on canvas or wood panels, is represented in major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Brooklyn Museum (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the British Museum (London), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), and Kupferstichkabinett–Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Germany).

A silverpoint drawing is made by dragging a silver rod or wire across a prepared surface. (Other metals can be used as well, referred to generally as metalpoint). In contrast to the traditional use of silverpoint for figurative imagery, Schwalb’s work is resolutely abstract, and her handling of the technique is highly innovative.

Susan Schwalb says, “I have used Jewish sources in my work on and off for many years. In the late 1970s and early ’80s I made a group of box sculptures which combined silverpoint drawing with Jewish ritual objects.” These works recall the art of Joseph Cornell (1903–1973), who used boxes and simple materials to create surreal microcosmic worlds. 

“Shrine of the Scroll” encases a distressed parchment mounted amidst feathers, candles, and quills rendered in delicate silverpoint. Schwalb likens the format of this work to a portable ark containing a Torah scroll, like one a rabbi might bring to a home during the weeklong Jewish mourning period called shiva. The box is draped with a tallit, or prayer shawl.* These evocative objects connect the work both to the Jewish tradition, and to personal recollections of the artist. 

* The embroidered strip on the neck of the tallit is called the atarah (“crown”) and the text is the blessing recited when donning the tallit.

silver, gold, copper, tin, aluminum, platinum, and black gesso on wood  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Schwalb tells us that her “Harmonizations” series is inspired by the Jewish legend of the Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim,* or 36 righteous Jews. According to this tradition, in every generation there are 36 righteous Jews living in the world. These lamedvavniks have no acquaintance with each other, and do not themselves know that they are one of the 36. It is said that they only emerge when needed to save Israel, the Jewish people, or the world. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world, even if the rest of humanity sinks into depravity. If the number ever goes below 36, tragedy will strike the Jewish people and the world. One implication of the story of these anonymous saints is that every Jew should act as if he or she might be one of them, leading a life of humility and holiness for the sake of others—the world depends on it.

While Schwalb was reading about this legend, a dear friend who survived the holocaust began to die. She reflected that if she had ever met a lamedvavnik, this man was one. This led to making works using 36 squares. One is left blank to symbolize a saint whose life is ending, and the moment in which a new saint might emerge to preserve the world.

* In Jewish tradition, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a numerical value. The value of Lamed ל is 30, and the value of Vav ו ‬is 6.

gold leaf, mica powder, and acrylic on canvas  |  MOCRA collection

The “Tree of Life” series evolved from a prior series called “Let there be lights in the firmament”. “Tree of Life” and “Let there be lights . . .” represent a significant departure in medium for Schwalb, as they feature acrylic and gold or silver leaf on paper without silverpoint drawing, along with lines and shapes scratched on the surface of the painting. 

Schwalb says that the “Tree of Life” paintings envision our universe, elevated to a metaphysical or spiritual plane. An abstracted image of a tree form emerges from a  glimmering golden surface with an explosive impact. With these works Schwalb had in mind “the peculiar brilliance of the light of Jerusalem as it is reflected in the golden stones of the city.”

latex on pine panel with hardware and clock |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the estate of Adrian Kellard

Adrian Kellard was a skilled draftsman and artist (he studied art at SUNY Purchase and SUNY Empire State), but he chose to work in everyday materials and in a folk-like style—he came from blue collar roots and sought to create art that would be accessible to people of all social standings. Throughout his art, Kellard explored his experience as an Irish-Italian, Catholic, gay man loved by God.

As Kellard grew progressively more ill from AIDS-related causes, his work revealed a deeper understanding of entering into the passion of Jesus. In this work, Kellard draws on the popular image of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane by nineteenth-century German artist Heinrich Hofmann. The hanging panel at the base of the work, quoting the Gospel of Mark, suggests that AIDS was a cup of suffering Kellard would gladly have seen taken away. Kellard replaced the moon in Hoffmann’s work with a functioning clock, reinforcing the theme of grave illness—time was literally running out for the artist.

mixed media, gold leaf, and photograph on wood |  MOCRA collection

Following a career in theater and performance art, New York artist Robert Farber turned to visual art-making in his mid-30s. His work has been shown in such distinguished institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

After learning in 1989 that he was HIV-positive, Farber turned to AIDS as the dominant subject of his art. In “Altar #1,” a photograph of a medical vial is centered in an ornate frame that might as easily hold an image of a Christian saint. Christ, flanked by angels, raises a hand in blessing above the vial of VaxSyn HIV-1—the first AIDS vaccine to be cleared by the FDA for human trials. Obviously, it did not pan out; despite the significant advances made in treatments for HIV and AIDS, a cure remains elusive. The concerted effort to develop vaccines against COVID-19 once again highlights the faith many people place in modern medical science, but also the distrust felt by others. 

“Altar #1” might temper expectations of instantaneously vanquishing COVID-19. Those who live with HIV and AIDS understand that the work of science is incremental. Whether it’s HIV/AIDS or COVID-19, it is important to support research while strengthening the networks that sustain those who are impacted by disease, marshaling individual and communal resources to seek the most just and equitable distribution of care.

acrylic on panel under tempered glass  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

The late Bay Area artist Don Grant worked in ceramic, mixed media and painting. He often incorporated references to the human figure in his art and explored the interconnection among people, mortality, and the possibility that spirituality offers for transcending the pain of being human. This vessel floats in space like some sort of idealized Platonic object whose placid waters are disrupted where something new and unexpected has been poured in. The moment of change is magnified by the shattered glass affixed to the painting—one of the most stable and permanent, yet fragile, of materials explodes in a lively play of light on its facets. In a similar way, our impermanent bodies are temporary containers for a universal and eternal spirit. Epiphany, destruction, vulnerability, receptivity, and transformation—all these are called to mind by this work.

acrylic on canvas, oak  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Georgia G. James and Richard T. James, Jr.

Chicago-based artist Daniel Ramirez is highly regarded for elegant minimalist works. His work is found in public and private collections throughout America. In 2017 his work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Ramirez cites as his primary influences Romanesque and Gothic architecture, the writings of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen. 

This work utilizes a shape favored by the artist, the trapezoid. Gracefully arcing lines recall the arches and vaulting of Gothic churches in subtle tonal gradations of greys, blues, purples, and light beiges. An almost undetectable shift of perspective throughout the work draws us in and suspends us in space. The work itself appears to hover in front of the wall, forming an environment of harmony and grace conducive to quiet contemplation.

wood, cast iron, limestone  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Sculptor Peter Ambrose has works in private and corporate collections throughout the country, including New York, St. Louis, and San Diego. The main subject of Ambrose’s work is the human figure, interpreted through the lenses of Cubism and Constructivism. Lynn Gamwell writes that Ambrose presents “a metaphorical projection of a figurative presence into alien, unhuman materials.” 

With its iron wedges driven into the wood, this work evokes classical portrayals of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, a young Roman soldier shot through with arrows. The arrangement of the blocks also suggests a figure about to collapse from cleaving forces, calling to mind also the scourging of Jesus prior to his sentencing by Pilate, a biblical scene frequently depicted by artists across the centuries.

cyanotype on cloth  |  MOCRA collection

Born in Hong Kong, Horatio Hung-Yan Law is a Portland-based installation and public artist who focuses on making creative projects with communities. The core of his art stems from his Asian-American identity and his experience as an immigrant. His projects, which often include a strong community process, explore the effects of our current culture of consumption and the invisible foundation of a community—identity, memory and history. He is currently working on a project with The AMP: AIDS Memorial Pathway in Seattle, WA. 

The Way of the Cross is a venerable Christian practice of meditating on various events leading to the death of Jesus, allowing believers to enter into a spectrum of spiritual and emotional experience. Law draws on this structure to engage viewers in the experiences of those affected by AIDS. In the traditional reckoning, the fourteenth and final Station is “Jesus Laid in the Tomb.” “Remnants evokes the Shroud of Turin, a cloth reputed to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Law created this work to honor a close friend who had recently been diagnosed HIV-positive. The artist used his own body to imprint a ghostly silhouette, expressing his sorrow, pain, and sense of loss at his friend’s suffering. Law says that his ritualistic attempt to heal his friend by making this work resulted, to his surprise, in his own inner spiritual healing.

oil and mixed media on canvas  |  MOCRA collection •  a gift of UMB Banks and the Crosby Kemper Foundation

Frederick J. Brown drew on many sources for his paintings, including his African-American and Choctaw ancestry, his religious upbringing, and the folklore of the South. He referenced religious, historical and urban themes in his work, but was especially noted for his numerous portraits of jazz and blues artists. His work shows the influence of the German Expressionists and the American Abstract Expressionists, especially that of his mentor and friend, Willem de Kooning. Brown exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad, and his paintings are in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City).

In 1992, Brown offered to execute a large, multi-paneled altarpiece based on the life of Christ for the soon-to-open MOCRA. The resulting Life of Christ Altarpiece was completed in 1995 and is comprised of a central triptych (“Baptism,” “Descent from the Cross,” and “Resurrection”) and two side panels (“Madonna and Child” and “Descent into Hell”).

According to tradition, just prior to his resurrection, the spirit of Christ entered into the realm of the dead and released the spirits of the important figures of the Old Testament so they could participate in the Resurrection. Christ’s spirit then rejoined his body for his own Resurrection. For Brown, the idea of a “Descent into Hell” had modern and even personal resonances, a deeply felt understanding of what it is to look into the abyss and to be overwhelmed by the various struggles of life. His return to the style of Abstract Expressionism that he used in the 1970s, and the removal of all figural elements, heightens the sense of vast, even limitless despair. Yet, there is also a sense of triumph over those difficulties, expressed through the spirits that are ascending. It is the culmination of a significant, modern treatment of the life of Christ.

mixed media on board  |  MOCRA collection

Patrick Graham is regarded as one of Ireland’s most important contemporary artists. From his childhood he had a remarkable talent for academic drawing and painting. Exposure to German Expressionist art opened up new doors of possibility for him even as it triggered disillusionment with the limitations of the art he had been trained in, leading to a period of artistic and personal crisis. He eventually emerged from that darkness, and is credited by critics and art historians with changing the face of painting in Ireland. 

Graham produces grave and complex paintings that are distinguished by his unabashed exploration of difficult, personal subject matter and dissection of its psychological, spiritual, and aesthetic implications. The works reference Irish culture and landscape, Roman Catholicism, Graham’s complicated upbringing and personal battle with chemical dependency and mental illness, and his love for his son, Robin.

With nail holes in the figure’s feet, the suggestion of a crown of thorns, and a halo, “Rising and Falling” alludes to the crucifixion, entombment, and resurrection of Jesus. The side-by-side placement of the two figures allows the artist to evoke and contrast different psychological and emotional states. An arm enters the painting from the right—perhaps the hand of God—suggesting the power of outside intervention and the possibility of renewal and transformation.

pigment and wax on panel  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Zita Rosenthal

Michael David is best known for his use of the encaustic technique, which incorporates pigment with heated beeswax. His work is found in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum in New York City, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His recent endeavors include establishing the Fine Arts Workshop in Atlanta, and founding and directing two galleries in Brooklyn. 

David notes,

My work has its roots in three great schools of art to emerge out of New York City: Abstract Expressionism, the great jazz of the 1950s, and early 1970s punk rock. For me, the commonality between these three art forms consists of a direct, intense physicality borne of improvisation; a desperate search for content created out of materiality, gesture and process. . . . I believe painting is a secular spiritual practice and at its highest levels speaks to our better nature. The more the artist is transformed by their process, the more one “lets go” of control, the more open the experience and the greater the record of that transformation. This experience actualizes the state of being part of something larger than ourselves, something we feel and know but don’t fully understand—something greater than oneself.

The surface of “Missing in Action” is covered with irregular chunks of red encaustic wax. Described by one commentator as a “red badge of courage,” this work may be perceived by some viewers as being covered with red flowers. But, horrifyingly, the wax can also appear to be human flesh. This work bears witness to the unspeakable suffering of Jewish communities during periods of persecution, especially the Holocaust. Yet in its grand scale it also testifies to a spirit of perseverance, resilience, and even hope in the face of such evil.

oil, magna, wood, cloth, paper, cardboard, and gold leaf on wood panel  |  MOCRA collection

Since the 1980s, Jim Morphesis has been one of the most influential members of the expressionist art movement in Los Angeles. His paintings express a deep, universal concern with the dehumanization of society throughout history. He often produces numerous works on a particular theme, such as Christ’s Passion (influenced by his Greek Orthodox upbringing), nude torsos (inspired by Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Soutine) and universal symbols of mortality, including skulls and roses. His paintings are characterized by sensuous, textured surfaces. 

Skulls have long appeared in art as a form of memento mori, or reminder of our mortality. According to the Gospels, Jesus was executed on Golgotha (“Skull Place”). While traditional representations of the Crucifixion often include bones scattered on the ground, in this work the skull is the sole image.

The dramatic and gestural handling of paint on a ground of splintered wood causes the image to break down the closer the viewer approaches, echoing the process of decomposition. Morphesis notes, “It is important for me that a work be very physical and not just look physical. I employ used pieces of wood because they come with their own history and their own character.” The subtle use of greens and blues suggests a possibility of transformation and renewed existence. 

unique digital print on metallic vinyl fabric   |  MOCRA collection

Rebecca Niederlander grew up in St. Louis but relocated to Los Angeles in 1995. Her site-specific sculptural installations are labor-intensive abstractions that use repetition and the inherent ephemeral nature of the materials to address the individual’s position within the larger intergenerational community. She was also co-founder of the social practice BROODWORK, in which she curated, wrote, spoke, and designed actions and objects that explored the interweaving of the creative practices and family life—in particular, parenthood. 

In Niederlander’s “Essential Drawings” series, she seeks to embody in two dimensions what is essential in her multi-elemental sculptures. Through close examination of her photographic documentation of the sculptures, she selects certain details, refining and redefining them through continued contraction and expansion. The resulting large wall hangings reflect shifts in scale and perception from micro to macro, and from macro to the infinite.

“Celestial Pole” refers to the concept of the axis mundi, a structuring element for a culture’s geographic, psychic and spiritual universe. The axis mundi serves as a connector between heaven, earth, and underworld, a point of beginning and ending. It tethers us to something greater than ourselves, drawing us to a greater understanding of who we are amid the meandering pathways of our individual journeys. “Celestial Pole” also has more personal referents. The title alludes to a nickname for her son, and the work incorporates abstracted flora and fauna, including a rabbit (the artist’s longtime totem, used by her extensively in works from the mid- to late-1990s). The work also recalls the mosaics of the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica, which Niederlander visited often while growing up, and pays homage to the mosaic artisans and the power of art to communicate the strength of the spirit within us.

etched and hammered copper relief on board  |  MOCRA collection

Christopher Schulte is a self-trained artist who began creating and expressing at the age of thirty-five with St. Louis, MO, as his home base. Since 1999 he has exhibited in solo and group shows at venues in St. Louis, Kansas City, MO, and Taos, NM. His art is found in private and public collections around the United States and internationally. 

This scintillating work in copper is a visual interpretation of a mantra favored by Schulte:

Lead Me
  from the unreal to real
  from darkness to light
  from death to immortality
   OM, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, OM

The artist says of his work, 

The mosaics and organic images that take shape in my work blend all of the fragmentary elements of my world and existence into a celebration of being, glorious happening of pattern, rhythm, color, form and balance, replete with the internal complexities that sustain and color my daily existence. . . . It is a soul-searching process that affirms and honors the pleasurable journey of living and evolving. It is my way of rejoicing in stretching beyond the borders and boundaries I was always told to maintain.

digital Duratrans and aluminum light box  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Dean Kessmann teaches at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and his work is found in major public collections. His work explores questions about perceived and actual reality, and the ways in which scientific and religious understanding interact. Fundamentally, he asks whether science is capable of giving undeniable confirmation of the truths that spiritual, faith-based understanding gives believers. 

“Wafer and Wine/Blood Cells” can be seen as a meditation on the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation that holds that, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, bread and wine become truly (if not necessarily apparent to the senses) the body and blood of Jesus. Exploring the limits of scientific, measurable certainty, Kessmann presents highly magnified photos of communion wafers soaked in wine. The resemblance to blood corpuscles is remarkable (it is not hard to imagine stars and planets as well). This visual evidence is evocative, but in the end, it is a creation of the artist—leaving the final conclusion to the reason and faith of the viewer.

digital photograph  |  MOCRA collection

Andy Julo is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in printmaking, camera-less photography, and installation-based media. His work draws connections between the human body, the shared past, and the cosmos by re-imagining ancient stories, traditional forms, and symbolic codes. Currently, Julo serves as the director/curator of the Verostko Center for the Arts on the campus of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. 

Julo writes, “As an artist and as a person of faith, I am interested in sites where realms mingle—paradoxical experiences of presence and absence, light and shadow, night and day, belief and unbelief, and the sacred and profane.” The title of this work alludes to the Nicene Creed, a centuries-old statement of Christian belief. In particular, it is an affirmation of Jesus’ co-equal divinity with God the Father. The artist notes,

“Light from Light” imagines the entombment of Christ in anticipation of the resurrection. This is a space of ultimate darkness where the paradox of rebirth is at hand. . . . By employing a model who identifies as queer and was raised Jewish in a remote part of Oklahoma, I am drawing a parallel with the Suffering Servant described in the Book of Isaiah—a prefigurement of Christ who achieves exaltation through despisement and anguish. Contemporary tensions such as these recall the mysteries and complexities of faith in a God we cannot see or touch, but who is intimately bound within our being and becoming.

unfired clay, lead, laminated redwood and walnut  |  MOCRA collection
ceramic, laminated wood, beeswax |  private collection, St. Louis
ceramic, laminated wood, beeswax, plaster |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Terrence Dempsey, S.J.

A multidisciplinary artist equally accomplished in performance, art, and design, Jeff Miller is a native St. Louisan now residing in Atlanta. He is fascinated by the inextricable relationship between image and container, inside and outside, thing and the space it occupies. The central shape in each of these works is inspired by the multitude of icons Miller observed on a trip to Greece. The shape defines a place of emptiness and gravity and density, but it also relates to other images that appear frequently in Miller’s work. These include the heel of a shoe or boot (evoking sacred sites where the footprint of a holy person is impressed into the ground), and train tunnels (a symbol of passage to other realms). The materials used in these works are often undervalued or discarded. Lead is transmuted through alchemy into gold; wax is typically discarded in the process of casting sculptures.

collage with Japanese paper and gold leaf  |  MOCRA collection

German artist Lore Bert has created more than 125 installations on nearly every continent, including a major work installed in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in St. Mark’s Square for the 2013 Venice Biennale. Bert integrates her sculptural works into different spatial environments in order to explore a variety of possible meanings and dialogues. Since the 1980s, she has created collages and reliefs, and has experimented with transparencies in sculptures and installations.

Bert has traveled extensively, incorporating both the materials and the essences of various locales into her work. Especially stimulating for her has been the dialogue/dialectic between East and West, and her works often utilize papers from Japan and other Eastern origins. This floorplan for an imagined sacred space invites the viewer to contemplation as a path to inner perfection and appreciation of beauty. The red mark is a Korean stamp of Bert’s name.

oil on wood panel  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist
oil on steel plate  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

The painters of the Northern Renaissance, such as Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, and their contemporaries, produced stunningly realistic still life images. But they included details in their works that, to the viewer keyed in to their symbolism, quietly communicated religious meaning. Contemporary photorealist works have the same potential for hidden symbolism, as demonstrated in these two works by Los Angeles artist Nick Boskovich. 

“Emmaus: Rose of the Passion” draws on the scriptural story of the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). Those disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking and blessing of bread. Similarly, the broken bread here, along with the glass of red wine and white rose, call to mind the Last Supper and the suffering and death of Jesus, as well as to the Resurrection and what lies beyond.

“Annunciation” refers to the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary in Nazareth, announcing that she had been chosen by God to bear the savior of the world (Luke 1:26–38). The calla lily has a long association in art with Mary’s virginity. The wrapped box suggests the anticipation of awaiting the birth of a child, while the enclosing string suggests the cross.

58 prints employing various intaglio techniques  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Mr. Leonard Scheller

Rouault was a fervent Catholic reacting to the strange new world of the early twentieth century: new technologies, new modes of transportation and communication, and the unprecedented destruction of World War I. Rouault addresses the suffering and wickedness of the world, often paralleling these with the suffering of Christ, as seen in the selections in this side chapel.
In his preface to the 1948 edition of “Miserere,” Rouault included this poem:

Form, colour, harmony,
Oasis or mirage
For the eyes, the heart or the spirit

Towards the surging ocean of the call of art
“Tomorrow will be fair” said the castaway
Before disappearing below the hostile horizon

Peace hardly seems to reign
In this anguished world
Of shadows and pretences

Jesus on the cross will tell you better than I
And Joan on trial in brief and glorious phrases
As well as saints and martyrs
Obscure or hallowed.

More information about Rouault is found at  No. 6.

ink, paper, and thread on Tyvek-backed fabric  |  MOCRA collection

Brooklyn-based artist Lesley Dill works at the intersection of language and fine art in printmaking, sculpture, installation and performance, exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Dill is deeply interested in language, faith and spirituality, and the possibility of awakening viewers to the physical intimacy and power of language itself. 

Dill’s drawings and collages often combine imagery with stenciled words drawn from poets, authors, and historical figures. In recent years she has been exploring the lives and writings of American poets, speakers, religious visionaries, and abolitionists. The works elicit themes of contradiction and excess and ecstasy, activism and terrorism, stillness and chaos, repression and freedom, madness and sanity. 

Anne Hutchinson is a central figure in an early religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Outspoken and unafraid to court controversy, she convened weekly meetings at her home at which she articulated theological positions that put her at odds with the colony’s religious and political leaders (and also challenged the patriarchal social order). Put on trial in 1637, she asserted that she her knowledge came directly from God: “So to me by an immediate revelation . . . By the voice of his own spirit to my soul.” Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts; she died in 1643 in New Netherland (now New York) in an attack by the indigenous Siwanoy.

no. 3 of an edition of 36
fiber  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Susan Schwalb

Based in Southern California, Laurie Gross is nationally recognized for a body of work that includes sculpture, ritual objects, and commissioned designs for worship spaces. She is inspired by Biblical and midrashic texts and Jewish tradition (both communal and familial) in creating work that embodies universal themes, rich in metaphors. 

The Hebrew word Rachamim (רַחֲמִים) is typically translated into English as “mercy” or “compassion.” However, as the title of this work suggests, the word derives from Racham (רַחַם), meaning “womb.” Compassion, then, is like the love without bounds of a mother for her child, the deepest knowing and connection of one being with another. Gross’ sculpture visualizes this relationship with the suggestion of a child nestled against its mother, enfolded in winglike forms. The stripes and fringe on the fabric evoke a tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl. 

photograph  |  MOCRA collection

St. Louis photographer John Hilgert taught for over a decade at Webster University and was also an instructor at other area schools, including SLU. While his photography tended to focus on landscapes and objects, not human figures, curator Jeff Hughes notes, “His images—whether recording a landscape, an object or fire—seem to always suggest presence, and of being present.”

Elegiac in mood, these intimate portraits focus on small sculptural objects that Hilgert fashioned from natural and manufactured elements. Jeff Daniel observes, “These could be tools, or toys or medical instruments. They could be objects used in some arcane religious rite. They could be objects for objects’ sake. Whatever the interpretation, these . . . are undoubtedly a comment on the eternal relationship—sometimes simple, sometimes complicated—between man and nature.” Photographed against a rough paper, the solid objects seem to grow tenuous at their edges, while the shadows suggest memories and echoes of a life now past.

acrylic on paper  |  MOCRA collection •  a gift of Leslie and Ronald Ostrin

New York artist Tobi Kahn is a painter and sculptor whose work has been shown in over 40 solo exhibitions and over 60 museum and groups shows since he was selected as one of nine artists to be included in the 1985 Guggenheim Museum exhibition, “New Horizons in American Art.” Works by Kahn are in major museum, corporate, and private collections. He teaches and lectures extensively.

Kahn writes, “In my paintings and sculpture, I am trying to distill the complex beauty of the world into its elemental forms, while evoking at the same time the mystery beneath such simplicity.” Kahn is interested in the interaction between memory and place. The forms in his paintings register as landscapes, although with ambiguous, shifting relationships between the foreground and background. As in his finished paintings, Kahn achieves the subtle, dense colors in this study by applying acrylic paint first in vibrant, opaque layers, then translucent washes. Kahn’s titles are invented words, ambiguous but evocative, inviting us to make associations, just as the painted images jog recognition.

acrylic on panel  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Salma Arastu was born in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, home to sites sacred to both Hindus and Muslims. A major turning point in her life came when Arastu married her husband, a Muslim, and converted to Islam from the Hindu tradition in which she was raised. Eventually the couple settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Arastu continues to create work in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. 

Arastu is passionately committed to calling for respect and harmony among religions. This work comes from a series called “Unity of Symbols and Sacred Texts.” Arastu says she began this series

in the hope of reflecting the interconnectedness of belief in our collective cultural memory of origination of stories and use of script in conveying spiritual teachings. . . . We live in a global world today, and we are connected, our destiny is shared; we can only find peace and success when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. 

This work incorporates symbols connected with Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Bahai, and Buddhism. The central glyph interlinks the symbol for the sacred word Om and the Arabic word for Allah. Other symbols include the Christian cross, Judaism’s six-sided Star of David, and the lotus flower associated with Buddhism.

acrylic gesso, watercolor, and graphite on collaged paper on rag paper, framed with oil on wood, acrylic gesso, found material, and brass
MOCRA collection • a gift of Anne Minich, commemorating the birth of Annie Husted and the death of Juan González

Philadelphia-based artist Anne Minich was a close friend of painter Juan González, whose death from AIDS-related causes in 1993 inspired MOCRA’s groundbreaking exhibition “Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS.” Minich shares González’ interest in an almost ritualistic arrangement of objects on her canvases and in her sculptures. Often her work resembles small shrines and intimate altarpieces. 

In this piece, Minich employs several motifs that were hallmarks of González’ oeuvre: swaths of cloth, repeated figures, super-realistic flora and fauna, and a dreamlike sense of spaciousness. Of particular interest is the drawing of a moth, which González had given to Minich, who later incorporated it into this work. For Cubans the moth is a symbol of death. Here the moth in flight is suggestive of the cycle of life and death—an appropriate image, for a month after González’ death, Minich’s granddaughter Annie was born.

gelatin silver photograph  |  MOCRA collection

Hailed as one of today’s most important photographers, Dawoud Bey was born and raised in New York City and currently resides in Chicago. Represented in major museums in the United States and abroad, he first gained national attention with a 1979 exhibition at the Studio Museum of Harlem of candid photographs of the diverse people who call Harlem their home.

Bey states: “The most important thing about the work I’ve made over the years is that it engages issues and subjects in the real social world in a way that foregrounds those things and heightens our engagement with them . . . ” “Combing Hair” highlights a defining element of Black life in America, one rooted in the past. In traditional African cultures, hairstyles could communicate geographic origin, ethnic identity, religion, marital status, wealth, and community standing. As the most elevated part of the body, hair was imbued with spiritual significance, serving as the conduit between the soul and the divine. Social bonds were strengthened by the lengthy process of creating elaborate styles. Braiding hair was an art form taught by the most senior female members of the family, and hairdressers were among the most trustworthy members of society.

The slave trade brutally disrupted these traditions, but Black folk found ways to adapt. Into the present day, social currents and the advent of new haircare products continue to influence the way Black Americans relate to their hair. Complying with accepted standards of beauty can entail psychic and emotional stress, as well as enduring the physical pain caused by lye-relaxers, hot combs, weaves and wigs. Perhaps this explains why the girl in Bey’s photo looks away distractedly, anticipating the end to this process. Her eyes are glossy, maybe with tears, suggesting she is “tender headed” (a term for someone who has a sensitive, easily irritated scalp). 

Bey’s composition suggests the complex relationship between the girl and the young woman styling her hair. Whatever it may be, they have a close and intimate bond. Even in her discomfort, the child leans back in the woman’s lap, sheltered under her arms. The woman seems unbothered by the child’s disposition and instead smiles directly and confidently at the camera. Bey’s glimpse of an intimate and unguarded moment prompts reflection on beauty on several levels: the beauty of relationship, the beauty of embracing who you are in your natural state, and the sometimes painful work entailed in achieving certain standards of beauty.

linen with embellishments and embroidery |  MOCRA collection

Gryphon Blackswan combined his pride in his African-American heritage with an interest in Asian aesthetics to create eloquent apparel. He believed that clothing can be a carrier of powerful emotional energy and a sense of identity, and in his fashion designs, he aimed to capture the spirit of the person for whom the clothing was being made. He wanted wearers to establish an intimate connection, a relationship, with his garments. 

Blackswan designed this chasuble (a vestment worn by a priest when celebrating the Mass) for the 1994 MOCRA exhibition “Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS.” Each element of the chasuble reflects a dimension of Blackswan’s process and aims. The materials were largely drawn from leftover, discarded, or donated fabrics, reflecting his commitment to minimizing his participation in the negative environmental and human rights impacts of the garment industry. The white linen making up the body of the chasuble is a material traditionally used for burial shrouds, an acknowledgment of the many people who have died from AIDS-related causes (including Blackswan). The gold, black, and purple silks on the front create intricate patterns inspired by Seminole patchwork. 

Blackswan often reserved his most intricate designs for the backside of his garments, encouraging the viewer to actively engage with the garment to experience it fully. The chasuble’s backside includes a calla lily (associated with purity), a rock (suggesting faithfulness, stability, and refuge) and the water (associated with baptism and rebirth.)