Liminal Gallery Guide

Susan Schwalb (b. 1944)

gold leaf, silverpoint, and acrylic on paper   |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

New York-based Susan Schwalb is one of the foremost figures in the revival of the ancient technique of silverpoint drawing in America. 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.

This work comes from a series inspired by illuminations from the celebrated Sarajevo Haggadah, which dates from around 1350 and contains the traditional texts recited at the Passover Seder, accompanied by illustrations. Schwalb was drawn to the haggadah’s illuminations representing the creation of the world. In this work, images of the sun and the moon, of land and water, emerge from a luminous gold leaf void. Siverpoint tracery undulates across the surfaces, suggesting the creative energies active at the birth of the cosmos.

• What are your sources of creativity and inspiration?

Schwalb discusses her work in Episode 15 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Sanctuaries. 

Listen to the Podcast

Stephanie Rayner

red oak casket; two ebony scrolls; sterling silver cuffs on scrolls; handmade paper; archival ink; map fragment; white snail shells; cast silver apple leaf; silver pocket watch with black and white photo; suede; quail feathers; and sand clock with apple seeds, film, and children’s first teeth  |  courtesy of the artist

Born in Toronto, Stephanie Rayner spent 15 years adventuring through the globe’s wild places over land by horse and dugout canoe before beginning her art career. She has presented her works at eminent gatherings worldwide, including The Vatican Symposium on Religion and Science, and worked in dialogue with experts ranging from astronomers at the Millennial Conference on Cosmological Morphology to physicists at Switzerland’s Institute for Theoretical Physics to geneticists working on The Human Genome Project.

Known for probing explorations of both spiritual and scientific terrain, Rayner’s work often encourages viewers to reflect on the frontiers of human knowledge, inviting them into communion with uncertain forces. These interests form a natural dialogue with Susan Schwalb, whose gently mysterious abstractions swim in similar metaphysical waters.

In Creation #3, Schwalb takes inspiration from the illustrations of Genesis in the medieval Sarajevo Haggadah, famed both for the quality of its illuminations and its miraculous survival. For her part, Rayner offers viewers a miniature Wunderkammer, in which she secrets enigmatic objects like sacred offerings, from snail shells to quail feathers to a cast silver apple leaf. Spooled on carved ebony staves, she inscribed scrolls with the story of her own Creation, fusing the fables of Genesis with bittersweet vignettes from her dark, enchanted childhood. Where the Haggadah encourages us to see the Passover tale of trauma and deliverance through the perspective of Four Children, Rayner’s text and sculpture invites us to cast a child’s eye on our own lost Edens. We should harbor no illusions, however, of recapturing our innocence. As her sand clock filled with apple seeds and children’s milk teeth suggests, we get but one bite at the apple. Time seals the gates of Paradise.

Commentary by Aaron Rosen

Listen to the artist read the texts on the scrolls.

• What is your personal origin story?

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969)

working collaboratively with David McGee (b. 1962)

watercolor and vegetable dye on handmade paper  |  MOCRA collection

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahzia Sikander emerged onto the international stage with the 1997 Whitney Biennial. Valerie Fletcher writes that Sikander’s art “is about complexity, contradiction, and synthesis — about past and present, Asia and America, self and society, reality and perception.” Her work inventively adapts the techniques of Persian miniature painting in which she was trained, from the intimate scale of her early drawings and paintings to her more recent digitally animated manuscripts.

Sikander infuses personal symbolism into sources as varied as the religious traditions of Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity; Persian legends; and Western fairy tales. Her work contends with migration, trade, colonial history, and climate change, but especially with female power and the cultural treatment of women. She says, “My work is about wanting not to be boxed in to any stereotype . . . My desire is to escape imprisoning representations.”

In this work, three images are superimposed over texts in Urdu and English. Prominent is a blue form that appears frequently in Sikander’s work, one that she describes as “an emblem of the erasure of the feminine from religion and history.” Curator Ainsley M. Cameron describes it as

a figure of empowerment and strength—referencing her own experience but also that of the feminine encounter more broadly. A self-sustaining figure, self-reflective, and self-referential, but one who is hindered and isolated from experience.

This form hovers over a chappal, or sandal, drawn by artist David McGee, and an undulating white form that refers to Ananta, also known as Shesha. In Hinduism, Ananta is a multiheaded, hooded celestial snake floating on the primordial Ocean of Milk, on which the god Vishnu reclines.

• What stereotypes box you in? How do you push against them?

Georges Rouault (1871–1958)

unique color aquatint  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Jack and Mary Lou Rutberg, Los Angeles

French artist Georges Rouault was a fervent Catholic reacting to the strange new world of the early 20th century: new technologies, new modes of transportation and communication, and the unprecedented destruction of World War I. His work addresses the suffering and the wickedness of the world, often paralleling these with the suffering of Christ. Apprenticed in his youth to a stained-glass maker, he incorporated the heavily outlined look of stained glass into both his paintings and prints.

MOCRA owns one of the few complete sets in the United States of Rouault’s most famous series of prints, Miserere, made between 1914 and 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 left the project unrealized, and 58 images were finally published in 1948. Even so, Miserere represents a landmark achievement in the graphic arts and in the religious art of the 20th century.

Qui ne se grime pas? is the eighth plate in the series. This print, however, is a unique proof outside of the edition of Miserere, made before the cutting down of the plate and alteration took place. Unlike the final series, which was printed in black and white, this print is in color. The model for this clown face is Rouault himself, lending an autobiographical dimension to the question posed by the title.

• What masks do you wear in your daily life?

Lesley Dill (b. 1950)

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. She is deeply interested in faith and spirituality, and the possibility of awakening viewers to the physical intimacy and power of language itself. Dill has been exploring the lives and writings of American poets, speakers, religious visionaries, and abolitionists. Combining imagery with stenciled words, these works elicit themes of contradiction: excess and ecstasy, activism and terrorism, stillness and chaos, repression and freedom, madness and sanity.

The visionary words of Anne Hutchinson, a central figure in an early American religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, radiate from this intimate work. Outspoken and unafraid to court controversy, Hutchinson 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 her knowledge came directly from God, saying, “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.

• For you, what are sources of authentic spiritual or religious authority? 

Vicente Telles (b. 1983)

traditional gesso, watercolor pigments, and oil pastel on masonite panel  |  MOCRA collection

Vicente Telles is an innovative practitioner of the santero (“saint-maker”) tradition, which refers to a distinctive New Mexican school of Catholic religious imagery that first flourished from the mid-18th to late-19th centuries and thrives again today. For contemporary viewers, the art of the classic santeros seems to anticipate modern abstraction with their characteristic flattening of space, simplification of form, use of patterned motifs, and distinct handling of line.

Telles consistently addresses the question, What can and should santero art be now? He began painting traditional retablos (panel paintings) using handmade pigments and gesso, but his style has evolved to include experimentation with different mediums such as textiles, hand-pulled papers, and found and repurposed materials, as well as reinterpretations of traditional Catholic and cultural iconography to address contemporary social concerns.

The aesthetic qualities of the retablo lend a consistency to Telles’ whole range of work. For instance, this witty self-portrait reflects a more naturalistic style. Yet, just as traditional santos (saints) display attributes (objects, clothing, etc.) that identify the saint, Telles includes clues to his identity even though his face is covered by a bean sack. He notes,

This piece is layered with elements of memory and sustenance, and speaks to the racist connotations of being a “Beaner” or “Mexican Greaser” in America. Interwoven with those elements is the nopal cactus, which represents the sacrifice of the Catholic faith. The shirt ties everything together because Truth and Power reside in all the tribulations of life. Being “other” is also recognizing the elements which make us and mold us as a being, as practitioners of faith and believing.

• What are some objects that would help you tell someone about your life? 

Telles discusses his work in Episode 26 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado.

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Gabriel García Román (b. 1973)

photogravure with chine-collé and silkscreen, with mahogany and oak frame  |  MOCRA collection

Gabriel García Román was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and lives in New York City. He works in a range of media and creates images and objects that explore identity. In 2019, he was commissioned to present 100 Queer Icon flags as part of the World Pride march.

García Román notes that subjects in his Queer Icons series

are drawn from many facets of the gender and queer spectrum, and these images give visibility to a population that’s generally under-represented in the art world. Finding inspiration in portraiture styles of Renaissance, Flemish and Christian Orthodox paintings, the series aims to elevate these multi-dimensional, powerful and proud contemporary figures.

The artist sees these individuals as heroes and honors them accordingly. Elements of traditional icons are merged with photographs and texts — authored by the portrait’s subjects — to offer keener insight into each individual’s story. Each portrait is distinguished by the use of chine-collé, a special printmaking technique in which papers of different colors or textures are bonded to the printing paper during the printing process. Custom framing completes the portrait’s formal presentatio.

• What does family look like to you?

Michael Takeo Magruder (b. 1974)

4K video sequence and soundscape
12:02 (seamless loop); edition of 1 + 1AP  |  courtesy of the artist

Michael Takeo Magruder is a British-American artist and researcher whose work uses Information Age technologies and systems to examine our networked, media-rich society. He has exhibited widely across the world and served as artist in residence at institutions such as the British Library and the UK National Archives.

I first met Takeo when he was conducting research at King’s College London for his solo exhibition De/coding the Apocalypse at Somerset House, London in 2014. At the exhibition’s center was an installation entitled The Horse as Technology, in which a 3D printer made small replicas of a horse skull. Each day, one replica was added to an array of 3D prints encircling the original skull like disciples or stenographers. The video work shown here is inspired by the original digitized horse skull as captured by a high resolution structured-light 3D scan.

The work represents the artist’s reinterpretation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the biblical Book of Revelation (6:1–8): Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. For Takeo, the horse exemplifies a form of technology that for millennia served as the most efficient means of transporting people, goods, and ideas across territories and cultures. 3D, virtual, and most recently artificial intelligence systems introduce a plethora of modern marvels, inviting us to speculate about how, in the artist’s words, these emerging technologies possess “the power to either create or destroy.” Indeed, with the rise of generative AI, we might wonder whether the Four Horsemen of the future will be men at all. They well may be machinations of our own device, yet beyond our comprehension.

Commentary by Aaron Rosen

• How do you perceive the relationship between spirituality and advanced technology?

Xavier Scott Marshall (b. 1996)

screenprint on aluminium sheet; edition: 1/1 + 1 AP
courtesy of the artist 

pigment on fine art paper; edition: 1/5 + 1 AP
courtesy of the artist

Contemporary photographer Xavier Scott Marshall is in the business of divine intervention. While walking in Harlem, he came across a woman weeping on a corner along Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard. Swept into the spirit, the woman paced in circles, speaking in tongues, her raw emotions overpowering any impulse for public self-restraint. Marshall’s photograph Tongues (Intervention) II, presents the woman in a doubled, grainy, and scratched image, heightening the force of her inundated emotions. The compositionally sly presence of another figure in the background, perhaps one of the many passersby who glanced at the woman and continued on their own mundane trajectories, underscores the isolation of her public ecstasy. The woman seems to conjure the spirit of Powell, Jr., the vital pastor at the helm of Abyssinian Baptist Church for over 30 years, located near the corner where Marshall encountered her. Powell himself famously coined the phrase, “Keep the faith, baby,” going on to say, “God has no other hands than our hands, he has no other feet than our feet and he has no other tongue than our tongue.”

Madonna and Child, taken in Pittsburgh, where Marshall spent his teenage years, depicts a close friend and her infant standing in front of a house that caught fire yet remained standing. Offering a contemporary interpretation of the familiar motif of Madonna and Child, akin to Romare Bearden’s Mother and Child, Marshall employs his technical approach to generate a haunting effect. Not only are the two central figures blurred by a long exposure, but the ghostly outlines of other children are barely discernible, appearing like ancestral or angelic specters. A beaming smile from the maternal figure as she holds her child offers exuberance within a composition that could otherwise be simply unnerving. Shortly after photographing his Mary, Marshall returned to Pittsburgh, and the house was finally demolished. 

Marshall allows locations, photographs, and people to come to him over time, suggesting that these photographs are not documents of belief so much as acts of it, demonstrating a willingness to see the sacred in the everyday and to trust that such moments will arrive. He keeps the faith, and his images quietly invite us to do the same.

Commentary by Summer Sloane-Britt

• Have you ever had a moment of transcendence break into your everyday life?

Romare Bearden (1911–1988)

screenprint; ed. 67/200  |  MOCRA collection

Considered one of the most creative and original visual artists of the 20th century, Romare Bearden was a powerful social critic and advocate for young African-American artists. He worked in many media, including collage and photomontage, and his projects included designing sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

Bearden drew on personal memories, African-American cultural history, and literature to situate the African-American experience within the context of universal themes. In this screenprint, Bearden lays colorful blocks of ink over a grayscale photo reproduction of the “Virgin of Vladimir,” a famous12th-century Byzantine icon that is considered one of Russia’s national treasures. Bearden’s reworking prompts us to think about the way that sacred figures are depicted in the art seen in museums and houses of worship. Our perceptions may shift when these images challenge the constraints of culture, era, geography, or faith tradition.

• Have you ever made a spiritual or religious practice your own? 

Tobi Kahn (b. 1952)

acrylic on canvas over wood  |  MOCRA collection • purchase made possible through the generosity of Debbie Laites and Ben Z. Post

New York artist Tobi Kahn is a painter and sculptor whose works have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and are found in major museum, corporate, and private collections. He has also designed meditative and memorial spaces. 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. His titles are invented words — ambiguous but evocative, inviting us to make associations, just as the painted images jog recognition.

This work is part of Kahn’s Sky and Water series, a recurrent theme in his work since the 1980s. The forms in his paintings register as landscapes, although with ambiguous, shifting relationships. Art historian Donald Kuspit writes that sky and water “are elemental opposites, and Kahn’s horizon line marks their opposition, separating them — but also linking them, even reconciling or at least balancing them, however shifting the balance . . .” The expansive vista invites the viewer into a space of spiritual and philosophical contemplation.

• Are there places that have a special resonance in your memory?

Kahn discusses his work in Episode 11 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Tobi Kahn.

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Ada Bird Petyarre (ca. 1930–2009)

screenprint; edition: 100  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Jane and Jerry Garbutt

Ada Bird Petyarre was born in the Utopia region in Central Australia. She was one of seven sisters who all became notable artists, and as a senior elder of the Anmatyerre people, was deeply respected for her cultural role and artistic talent. Her work, characterized by fluid linear designs and bright colors, has been exhibited worldwide.

In the late 1970s, the women of Utopia were introduced to batik and other dying and textile painting techniques, and Petyarre became one of the founding members of the Utopia Batik Group. The art of Utopia gained swift prominence and highlighted the influential role of female artists and their distinct themes in Aboriginal art. Petyarre and the others frequently adapted designs used in body painting for Awelye (women’s ceremonies) for their batik work and later in other media such as painting. The ceremonies begin with the women painting each other’s bodies in designs relating to a particular woman’s Dreaming.

“The Dreaming” is a term applied to a complex of Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It is most commonly understood to express a creation time when ancestor heroes traveled the land, creating sacred sites and sometimes becoming one with the landscape. However, it also implies unbroken continuity with Aboriginal people today, guiding their relationship with the land, shaping moral codes, and transmitting cultural knowledge. An Aboriginal person may “own” a specific Dreaming, becoming its custodian and transmitting the Dreaming to future generations.

Petyarre was a custodian for many Dreamings, including Arnkerrth, the Mountain Devil Lizard, a central figure in the Anmatyerre Dreaming that symbolizes the creation of the desert landscape. This Awelye silkscreen makes reference to that Dreaming and the ceremonial designs associated with it.

• Are there parts of your heritage that you share with others? Parts that you keep within your family or community?

Learn more about contemporary Australian Aboriginal art in Episode 8 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Mary Reid Brunstrom

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Donald Grant (d. 2016)

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

The late Bay Area artist Donald 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.

Vessel alludes to themes of epiphany, destruction, vulnerability, receptivity, and transformation. This vessel floats in space like an idealized Platonic object whose calm waters are disrupted where something new and unexpected has been poured in. The suddenness 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. We might read this as a metaphor for impermanent human bodies that are temporary containers for a universal and eternal spirit.

• Can you recall a moment of insight that changed your life?

Grant discusses this work in Episode 17 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Consecrations, Part 2.

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Michael Velliquette (b. 1971)

paper sculpture  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

A working artist for over 20 years, Madison-based Michael Velliquette creates exquisite, meticulously crafted paper sculptures that transform meditative practice into three-dimensional form. The works’ intricate designs draw inspiration from surface embellishment and architecture, while each sculpture employs a monochrome palette that removes it from the real world.

All of the paper used in Velliquette’s sculptures is hand cut with straight edge scissors or X-Acto knives. On average each paper sculpture takes between 300 to 500 hours, and he produces about three to four works per year. For his enigmatic titles, he draws on a variety of sources, including poetry, philosophy, and theology. Now heaven’s river drowns its banks, and floods of joy have run abroad takes its title from a work by the Indian mystical poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Velliquette notes,

Throughout this period my work became increasingly abstract and, for me, the process of making the work became a kind contemplative exercise — keeping my mind present and concentrated on the cutting, gluing and arranging each piece of paper. I began to think of them as kind of three-dimensional mandalas of sorts. . . . It’s very slow and deliberate work, it’s about concentration and awareness. They are contemplative objects in the sense I intend for viewers to lose themselves in the experience of looking at them.

• Are there activities or practices that help you enter into a contemplative state? Do you find they inspire a creative response?

Jordan Eagles (b. 1977)

blood and copper preserved on plexiglass, UV resin  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

The work of New York-based artist Jordan Eagles has been exhibited at major venues including the High Museum of Art and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, and is found in numerous private and public collections, including the Peabody Essex Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Eagles began using animal blood as a painting medium in response to a philosophical debate with a friend about life after death, and the body–spirit connection. His use of blood evokes reflection on the corporeal and spiritual, on the scientific and the mystical, on mortality and regeneration. Eagles uses a variety of techniques in the creation of his art, and even the very processes by which he prepares his medium show a ritualistic sensibility. In some works he layers the blood at different densities, and heats, burns, and ages it. His innovative technique challenges nature by preventing the blood from decomposing.

The incorporation of copper, associated with electrical conductivity, imparts a fiery sensibility to URBC5. One of Eagles’s “energy” works, this painting evokes both the explosive death of a star in a supernova and a “stellar nursery” in a vast nebula.

• What associations does blood hold for you?

Eagles discusses his work in Episode 19 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Jordan Eagles.

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Juan González (1942–1993)

photo-collage with mixed media  |  private collection, St. Louis

The full-scale version of this work was one of the earliest public artworks on the topic of AIDS. It was first shown in September 1987 during the first U.S. AIDS Awareness Month. Measuring 10 feet in height and almost 20 feet wide, the work was installed in the street windows of New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and was visible from Washington Square Park across the street. In the original 1987 presentation, a scroll hung in the adjacent window recorded the toll of AIDS-related deaths during the period of the installation. The artist gave the work and this maquette to MOCRA Director Terrence Dempsey; the full-scale version became the anchoring work for MOCRA’s 1994 exhibition Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS.

González sets Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb against a stormy sky. A wreath of white roses is suspended above the corpse of Christ. The Cuban-born artist noted that, for Latin Americans, the white rose is a sign of hope in a time of adversity. The legend Don’t Mourn, Consecrate, writes Victoria Carlson, “is a strong and urgent plea. Echoing the political call to organization, it cries out for a recognition of the sanctity of life: the body of Christ, light, the grace of signs . . . .”

• How do you keep the memory of loved ones who have died?

Learn about González’s impact in Episode 17 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Consecrations.

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Charlotte Lichtblau (1925–2013)

oil on canvas  |  MOCRA collection

Charlotte Lichtblau was born in Vienna and attended art school in Austria before fleeing to the United States in 1940. She was strongly influenced by the German Expressionists of the first part of the 20th century. Expressionism is identified with the distortion of color, line, and form to reveal inner emotion. Lichtblau wrote,

[Expressionism] was meant to strip away the academic and baroque overlays of moralizing and mythologizing. It brought with it a clear emphasis on form — the absolute cognition of what is — which is to say a commitment to finding such truth as one can, whether in depictions of contemporary life or in pictures of historical or biblical subjects.

What this came to mean for me is that images and narratives should be shaped by inquiry rather than by sentiment. Some of these works are about biblical themes and subjects. My concern in them has not been to illustrate the Bible, nor have I wanted in any way to predetermine the impact of its troubling claims and tales. Instead, I have tried to let the works speak to the viewer directly about essential matters of life and death, love and sorrow, joy and despair.

Lichtblau’s images often touch on themes of exile, suffering, sacrifice, and all-embracing love. In this work, countless souls crowd into the foreground seeking the arms of God, whose tripartite profile suggests the Trinity. Two souls are already enfolded into the embrace, while a striking, almost fetal figure in red draws our attention as the only one with discernible features. Lichtblau’s palette is dominated by greens and blues, colors denoting renewal and new life. Indeed, at first glance the figure of God is reminiscent of a pregnant woman. The alternate title for this work, The Other Shore, may lend some clues about the blue background and boat-like shapes.

• How do your beliefs about what may come after death shape how you live your life?

Frederick J. Brown (1945–2012)

from The Life of Christ Altarpiece
oil and mixed media on canvas  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, UMB Bank of St. Louis, and UMB Financial Corporation

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.

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 (The Baptism, The Descent from the Cross, and The Resurrection) and two side panels (The Madonna and Child and The 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 heighten 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.

• Does this painting’s energy feel to you more like a crash or like an eruption? Does that affect how you see the piece?

These works are discussed in the MOCRA Voices series, “Meditations: Black Expression, Abstraction, and the Spirit.”

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Jim Morphesis (b. 1948)

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. Drawing on his Greek Orthodox upbringing, Greek mythology and culture, and art historical references, his paintings convey a deep concern with the human condition.

In this work, Morphesis alludes to both Christian and mythological sources. 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 title Morpheus alludes to a Greek god associated with sleep and fashioning dreams that bore messages to the dreamer.

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.

• How many different colors and materials can you identify in this painting?

Morphesis reflects on his work in Episode 10 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – The Early Years.

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DoDo Jin Ming (b. 1955)

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

DoDo Jin Ming is among the generation of Chinese artists who experienced the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. A 1988 exhibition of Joseph Beuy’s drawings caused her to abandon a musical career for a life in the visual arts. 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 an acute sense of our own creaturehood in the face of forces beyond our power to control.

Jin Ming’s tumultuous Free Element seascapes link her in power to the oceans 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.”

• Is there a place that helps you feel a sense of wonder, awe, or spiritual connection?

Ian Friend (b. 1951)

watercolor and gouache on paper  |  MOCRA collection • Gerald R. and Mary Reid Brunstrom Gift of Art from Australia

Raised in England in rural East Sussex, Ian Friend left his role as Assistant Curator of Prints at London’s Tate Gallery in 1985 to relocate to Melbourne, Australia, to teach at the Victorian College of the Arts. The striking transition to the wide expanses of Australia became a key driver in the development of his work as he explored his new surroundings.

For instance, Friend notes that the Heart of Exile series originated in “specific perceptions” and “emphatic responses” in an area called Koongarra, now part of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia, which is home to many examples of Aboriginal rock art spanning at least 25,000 years.

Friend employs watercolor’s “possibilities of translucent layering and staining to achieve some degree of correspondence to the original impetus for the works—a specific rock face.” The multiple layers of paint evoke the erosion and abrasion of the rock surface by both the harsh climate and human mark-making. Scale and depth in this painting are ambiguous; the eye may zoom back and forth from a vertiginous overview to focus on a small detail. Poet Laurie Duggan notes, “In Ian Friend’s 
work we are aware of ambiguous space and many levels of focus.”

Friend has disclosed that the title, Heart of Exile, relates to his “voluntary exile” from the United Kingdom. The tapered form in this work, which recurs throughout the series, “stands for a metaphorical heart/self-portrait, placed in a series of different situations, sometimes, but not always, relating to specific experiences.”

• Have you ever made a significant transition? How did the move change your perspective?

Friend’s work is discussed in Episode 8 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Mary Reid Brunstrom.

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Gary Logan (b. 1970)

oil on canvas  |  MOCRA collection

Trinidadian-American artist Gary Logan explores our unique relationship with the Earth and its elements, drawing visual and conceptual inspiration from both Taoism and the romantic tradition in painting. Through landscape imagery and the language of the sublime, he navigates the complex terrain of identity and human nature. His work speaks to universal concerns such as oppression, freedom, race, sexuality, healing and renewal, as well as his concerns for the health of our planet.

Red Sea began as a meditation on the connection between the saltiness of human blood and tears, and the saline oceans where terrestrial life likely originated. Logan also had in mind J. M. W. Turner’s painting Slave Ship, a work that evokes pathos and terror in its representation of the implacable ocean and the unfathomable suffering inflicted on enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage. Red Sea also draws attention to the warming of the oceans as a result of human activity, and the potentially disastrous impact of climate change on all life on earth.

• Is there an artwork (or piece of music, or book, or movie, etc.) that has a strong hold on your memory?

Logan discusses his work in the MOCRA Voices video “A Conversation with Gary Logan.” 

Watch the Artist Talk

Christopher Schulte (b. 1956)

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 35 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.

• Is there a mantra, prayer, poem, or other set of words that you return to often?

This artwork is featured in the “Artful Being” video series.

Watch the Video

Bernard Maisner (b. 1954)

oil, ink, mulberry paper, and damar on canvas  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Helen Du Bois in honor of Peter Du Bois

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. He has said that, for him, the spiritual dimension is an appreciation of that which we cannot know, accessed by studying the mystery of life without a desire for explanation.

In the early 1990s Maisner began to work on a large scale, blending oil painting with the techniques of manuscript illumination. The late art historian Dore Ashton noted that two motifs recur often in these larger works: an hourglass shape, and variations on spiral forms. Ashton associated these with multiple references—the spiral with scrolls and banners, the hourglass with the passage of time and infinity, but also the biological process of cell division. Another feature of these larger works is the application of numerous small paper squares reminiscent of mosaic tiles.

• Can you think of a time when a “Yes” made a difference in your life?

A panel discussion on Maisner’s work is featured in the MOCRA Voices video “‘The Hand Acts Out a Joyous Dance’: Celebrating the Art of Bernard Maisner.”

Watch the Video 

Dan Ramirez (b. 1941)

acrylic on canvas, aluminum, and steel  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

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 is installed so that it appears to hover in front of the wall, thus forming an environment of harmony and grace conducive to quiet contemplation.

• Is there a “language”—words, visual art, music, movement—that you find helpful in expressing your deepest beliefs?

Ramirez reflects on his work in Episode 16 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Dan Ramirez and Buzz Spector

Listen to the Podcast

James Rosen (1933–2022)

oil and wax-oil emulsion on canvas  |  MOCRA collection

Across a career spanning more than 60 years, James Rosen demonstrated a keen understanding of art history, mastery of form, and an ability to imbue canvases with mystery. Rosen’s interests were wide ranging, with subjects including portraits, landscapes, and architecture, and media including painting, watercolor, ink, and prints. This work employs Rosen’s distinctive oil and wax-oil emulsion painting technique. He explained,

Most of my paintings require 50 or 60 “veils” or layers. I begin usually with . . . the brightest colors, and then they are advanced toward a quality of light which is established by one veil going over another. In between, certain colors are lifted, that is pulled out from beneath and lifted on top of that layer. Then another layer or veil goes down until all colors, all strokes, all paint, reaches one quality of light, and when it reaches that, I consider the painting complete.

Rosen had a deep affinity for the art of the Renaissance. In the early 1980s, Rosen painted three great Madonnas as homages to images by Italian painters Giotto, Coppo, and Guido da Siena, whose most important work is the massive Maestà altarpiece (Maestà is Italian for “Majesty,” and used in this context refers to the subject of the Madonna and Child enthroned, often surrounded by angels or saints).

Viewers may sometimes be puzzled or impatient when trying to make out the faint image. Rosen spoke of the importance of the “capable observer” in completing a work of art:

My paintings are about time. . . . they have taken me sometimes a year to finish. They require time of the viewer as well . . . Only by spending time with the work, looking at it in subdued lighting, does one experience the work beginning to reveal itself to the viewer.

• Do you accept Rosen’s invitation to stay with the painting, perhaps for longer than you are used to looking at art?

Rosen discusses his work in Episode 1 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, James Rosen.

Listen to the Podcast

Luis González Palma (b. 1957)

photograph on linen mounted on board  |  MOCRA collection • a partial gift of Phyllis L. Weber

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.

The term Santo Sudario can refer to Veronica’s veil (which miraculously retained an image of Christ’s face when she wiped the blood and sweat from it on the road to the Cross) or to the cloth used to clean and cover Jesus’ head after the crucifixion. In this representation, a mature Maya bearing a thorny crown looks directly at the viewer. It is common in Guatemalan society for Indigenous people to cast their eyes down in the presence of someone of a higher social status. 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.

• Do you ever find it hard to look somebody in the eyes? 

González Palma’s work is discussed in Episode 23 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Martha Schneider.

Listen to the Podcast

Michael David (b. 1954)

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. He 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.

• What symbols hold power for you?

 

Eleanor Dickinson (1931–2017)

pastel on black velvet  |  MOCRA collection •  a gift of the Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson Charitable Art Trust

Eleanor Dickinson led a prolific and varied creative career, much of it in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was Professor Emerita at the California College of the Arts. She noted that her art “involved drawings of emotional expressions of people in all aspects of life, often dealing with unpopular and unlikely subjects, techniques and methods.” For nearly 20 years Dickinson documented the lives of fundamentalist religious people of the lower Appalachian Mountains. She began painting on velvet “when challenged by their assumption that, since I was an artist, I painted on black velvet. I found the black velvet to be the perfect union of form and subject.”

Dickinson remarked that, being raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, “I was taught that we all carry our own crosses.” The subjects of her Crucifixion series are everyday women and men for whom the passion of Christ has some significance. Employing extreme foreshortening and tenebrism (high contrast of light and shade, enhanced in this case by the use of black velvet as a medium), Dickinson places us at the foot of the cross of each of these people, elevating commonplace suffering to a monumental scale.

This work depicts Dountes Diggs, an African-American man living in Oakland, California. Viewers are challenged to examine their preconceptions of the image of Christ: this figure’s “crown of thorns” is in fact, Diggs’ dreadlocks. In 2009, he told Dickinson,

I’m very spiritual—though I stopped going to church at seven years old. 
My Grandmother told me there was good and bad in each heart. 
I chose to be good. 
Life is hard: you do the best you can. 
Grandmother worked in the cotton fields in Louisiana in the ’30s; 
they moved to California later for better opportunities. 
They were all Methodists. 
I’m very spiritual—just who I am. 
I’m comfortable with that.

• Does the saying, “carrying your own cross,” resonate with you?

Dickinson discusses her work in Episode 15 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Sanctuaries.

Listen to the Podcast

Janie Stamm (b. 1988)

installation with fabric, glass beads, vintage pearly buttons, ceramic, leather, chain, O-rings, and thread  |  courtesy of the artist

Janie Stamm’s work conjures a queer utopia at the fantastical point at which the vanishing ecosystems of her home state and current home—­the Floridian swamp and Missouri prairie— converge. This installation functions as a microcosmic version of this utopia, the centerpiece of which is an embroidered felt book, held in the palms of two black velvet crocodile claws. A tribute to the successful 1977–1980 gay rights campaign to reclaim Florida’s emblematic fruit from the anti-gay practices of the state’s Citrus Commission’s spokesperson Anita Bryant, the book’s evocative short poem invites its readers to continually reenact this reclamation by playfully meditating on the sensual sweetness of oranges and savoring a soft caress with each page-turn.

The book is flanked by two black ceramic objects spouting leather tassels alternately resembling candles, palm trees and floggers–their span linked by a criss-cross metal chain that binds them as mates or loyal protectors. Hanging above the ensemble like an evil-averting talisman, a beaded applique proclaims: You can’t drown a conch. Composed in colors drawn directly from Adrian Kellard’s The Promise, Stamm’s piece pays homage to him and other queer artists of his generation who died of AIDS-related causes, while also lending fresh resonance to Kellard’s depiction of himself as St. Christopher bearing the Christ child across a river, with Death hovering close behind.

As if in response to Kellard’s wood-carved text, I will never leave you, Stamm’s piece reframes otherwise absurd souvenir fare into a poignant eco-queer maxim that offers, against the erasures of death and history, a statement of consolation, solidarity and survival. Looking both backward and forward from the context and crises of their times, this pairing emphasizes art’s critical role in maintaining faith and in the preservation of fragile legacies.

Commentary by Jessica Baran

• What people or practices lend you strength and comfort in challenging times?

Adrian Kellard (1959–1991)

latex on wood  |  courtesy of the estate of Adrian Kellard

Adrian Kellard was a skilled draftsman and artist who studied art at SUNY Purchase and SUNY Empire State, but 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.

The Promise references the legend of St. Christopher, who had the birth name Reprobus and was of gigantic stature. After a period of spiritual searching, he began living a life of service by assisting people across a dangerous river. One day a boy asked Reprobus to carry him across the river. Reprobus was soon struggling, as if he were carrying the weight of the world, but eventually they reached the other side. The child told Reprobus that indeed he had been bearing all the world, but also the One who created the world. The child then revealed himself as Christ, and vanished. From that point on, Reprobus was known as Christopher, Greek for “Christ-bearer.” He became the patron saint particularly of travelers, but also of athletes, and his image was especially popular in the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.

In The Promise, made just two years before Kellard’s untimely death from AIDS-related causes, Kellard portrays himself in the role of St. Christopher. The enigmatic text, I will never leave you, seems to assert love, hope, compassion, and loyalty. The image expresses endurance and perseverance in the midst of suffering. Yet it remains ambiguous as to which figure is speaking the words, or perhaps they are addressing each other.

• Have you made any important promises? Were they difficult to keep?

The artist’s work is discussed in Episode 2 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Adrian Kellard.

Listen to the Podcast

Peter Ambrose (1953–2025)

charcoal and mica on paper  |  MOCRA collection •  a gift of the artist

Sculptor Peter Ambrose’s work is in private and corporate collections throughout the country, including New York, St. Louis, and San Diego. Ambrose served as Facilities Coordinator for MOCRA and Samuel Cupples House from 1995 to 2002.

The main subject of his work was 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.” In Lazarus, Ambrose brings forth a figure from an assortment of geometric forms. Translucent slices of mica overlay boldly drawn lines, creating a sense of depth. Recalling the Christian biblical story of a man raised from the dead by Jesus, this work suggests regeneration and renewal, the newborn emerging from the cast-off skin of the past.

• Have you ever reinvented yourself or had a fresh start?

Tara Sellios (b. 1987)

inkjet print from 8 × 10 negative  |  courtesy of the artist

Boston-based artist Tara Sellios writes, “I strive to create images that elegantly articulate the totality of existence, focusing heavily on life’s underlying instinctive, carnal nature in the face of fragility and impermanence.” She grew up in a strict born-again Christian household where vivid Biblical imagery from the Book of Revelation shaped her imagination from an early age. Sellios was drawn to the narrative imagery of European church altarpieces and to the intricate detail in 17th-century Dutch “vanitas” paintings, in which objects such as hourglasses and withering flowers remind us that earthly pleasures are worthless and fleeting. She says, “Manifesting melancholic themes with beauty, precision and seduction forces the viewer to look, despite its grotesque and morbid nature.”

Sellios’s work is highly process oriented, beginning with watercolor sketches and planning for the materials needed to build the physical tableaux that she then photographs:

The insects and skeletons used are real and acquired from across the globe from various collectors of specimens online. Arriving brittle and fragile, the insects must go through a process of rehydration to mount them into the new shape, giving them a sense of movement. The arrangement of the still life scene is then photographed using 8x10 color film and natural light. The film is scanned and edited with minimal photoshop work to remove wires, glue and the base structures that were used to hold it together.  The large format allows for immense detail and texture, with the potential for mural size prints, making them larger than life and referential to painting.

Snakes are among the oldest and most widespread of mythological symbols. Some traditions see them as guardians, while in others they are associated with temptation and evil. Their various associations include duality and the unity of opposites, transformation, creation and fertility, healing, and eternal cycles of renewal.

• In your life today, does time seem to be dragging on or speeding by?

Frank LaPena (1937–2019)

woodcut  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Frank LaPena was an internationally known painter, printmaker, and poet. Born in San Francisco and descended from the Indigenous Nomtipom-Wintu people of Northern California, he was cut off from his cultural heritage at a young age. After the death of their father, LaPena and his sister were taken from their mother and placed in an Indian boarding school. There, in order to facilitate their assimilation into the dominant culture, they were stripped of their language, culture, and history. As a young man, LaPena began searching for his roots and he became interested in the song, dance, and ceremonial traditions of his tribe. He worked with the elders of several Northern California tribes and was a revered leader in the revival and preservation of Native arts.

Best known for his vibrant paintings relating to Wintu and Maidu ceremonies and rituals, LaPena said, “Songs and ceremonies are what keep the world going,” a conviction reflected in his artwork. This work may refer to a supernatural bird called Wukwuk, whose feathers were particularly desired by shamans.

• Are there communal practices, traditions, and stories that are important to you? 

Junko Chodos (b. 1939) 

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.

In this work, Chodos uses dense collage to hold myriad elements together in an uneasy stasis, both visually and thematically. 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.

• Is there a place that helps you feel a sense of wonder, awe, or spiritual connection?

Steven Heilmer (B. 1950)

Carrara marble, wood   |  MOCRA collection • a gift of Dr. Albert Gnägi

Southern Illinois sculptor Steven Heilmer works in a variety of media, but he is best known for his sculptures in Carrara marble. His most important work, Gratia Plena, resides in the Chapel of Saint Ignatius at Seattle University.

Nativity Stone, carved from a single piece of Italian Carrara marble, highlights the contrast between areas of natural stone and stone which shows a human touch. This work might be quite at home in a Zen garden. Yet Heilmer’s work is rich in Christian meaning. The polished marble suggests a pool of milk just ready to spill over, symbolic of the bountiful love of Mary for her child Jesus, while the wooden wedge foreshadows his Passion and the pain she will also endure.

• What metaphor might you use to express the connection between a parent and child?

Daniel Goldstein  (1950–2025)

leather, sweat, wood, copper, felt, and plexiglass  |  MOCRA collection

In the early-to-mid 1990s, San Francisco artist Daniel Goldstein created a body of work concerned with mortality and transcendence in the face of AIDS. For his “found-object” Icarian series, Goldstein acquired discarded leather covers from the exercise benches at The Muscle System gym in San Francisco’s Castro district. Goldstein mounted the leather “skins,” unaltered, in cases that serve as shipping crate, display case, and reliquary. The images suggesting human forms and faces were created completely by the perspiration and physical presence of the many men who used the benches. Goldstein notes,
These marks on the leather were left by men trying to stay alive. They were made by living men on the skins of dead animals. They were marks made by men, many of whom were already dead.

The name of the series comes from the name of the company that made the bench covers, but also alludes to the young man in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun, only to fall back to earth.

• How do you remember people and places that are important to you?

Goldstein discusses this work in Episode 17 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Consecrations.

Listen to the Podcast

Archie Granot (b. 1946)

papercut  |  MOCRA collection

The tradition of Jewish papercutting dates back to at least the fourteenth century, and it became an important folk art among both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. The art form almost disappeared in the first half of the twentieth century, due both to emigration and to the Holocaust. During the last 50 years, however, papercut art as a means of Jewish expression has been revived.

Israeli artist Archie Granot goes beyond the traditional bounds of classic motifs and styles with his asymmetrical works built up of multiple layers of interlaced designs, creating a three-dimensional relief in what is usually a two-dimensional medium.

This work presents the Biblical passage Psalm 148:1–4:

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights. Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you stars of light. Praise him, heavens of heavens, and you waters that are above the heavens.

• Take a moment to consider how amazing paper is. What is one material you could express your creativity with?

Granot discusses his work in Episode 4 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Archie Granot.

Listen to the Podcast

Salma Arastu (b. 1950)

acrylic on canvas  |  MOCRA collection

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.

In this work, Arastu brings the beauty and elegance of Arabic calligraphy into dialogue with Western modern art movements like Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. Her text is a passage from the Quran, one that she believes reflects a positive, universal message:

. . . Who listens to the (soul) distressed when it calls on Him, and who relieves its suffering . . . (Al-Quran 27:62)
How might your response to this work be different if you were able (or not able) to read the calligraphic text?

• How might your response to this work be different if you were able (or not able) to read the calligraphic text?

Arastu discusses her work in the MOCRA Voices video “So That You Know Each Other: Intercultural Reflections on Art, Beauty, and Islam.” 

Watch the Video

Kazuaki Tanahashi (b. 1933)

acrylic on canvas scroll, wooden dowels  |  MOCRA collection

Artist, writer, and peace and environmental worker. Kaz Tanahashi was born in Japan and resides in the Bay Area. This painting was made with a single brush stroke, a technique Tanahashi is known for. He notes,

The East Asian ideograph meaning “One” is pronounced yi in Chinese and ichi or hitotsu in Japanese. It is the first character in the Chinese or Japanese character dictionaries, and is regarded as mother of all strokes in East Asian calligraphy. It is the most basic as well as the most common sign, consisting of a single stroke drawn in a decisive manner. Creating an artwork by a single stroke is a challenge I sometimes face.

One is a record of intention and the energy expended to make the mark, of a gesture which imparts meaning. The white paint vividly rends the black void of the canvas, suggesting the powerful forces unleashed by the creative act. The red mark in the lower right corner is the artist’s hanko, or seal.

• How are you making your mark on the world?

Ernesto Pujol (b. 1957)

digital prints and paintings on hand-blown glass plates
collection of the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas  • gift of the artist in memory of his paternal grandmother, Amparo Pino Dueñas, 2012.4

Ernesto Pujol was born in Cuba in 1957 and grew up in Puerto Rico, before relocating to the United States. Pujol’s years as part of a Catholic monastic order greatly influenced his art, as apparent in this work, Walk #1. In 2006 the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, premiered Pujol’s installation, which is comprised of framed black and white photographs, framed glass plates each bearing a single word, and a clerical robe. The photographs capture a lush Southern landscape, ornate Victorian cast ironwork, carved marble statuary, and other picturesque elements found in a Southern cemetery. The solitary, nearly motionless black-robed walker in some images is the artist himself. The words on the glass plates are drawn from sources including the writings of Walt Whitman. As in much of Pujol’s art, image, object, and performance are merged into a cohesive whole. To further demonstrate this unified approach, Walk #1 was accompanied by a live walking performance by the artist when presented at the McNay.

For MOCRA—and with the artist’s consent—a selection of photographs and glass plates was drawn from the installation’s entirety and is presented over the altar in a salon-style layout, in a space typically reserved for a crucifix, or tabernacle, or sacred imagery or objects. On the adjacent wall and in dialogue with Walk #1 is María Magdelana Campos-Pons’s Cia Cará #1, drawn from MOCRA’s collection. Also Cuban born, Campos-Pons explores issues of spirituality in her multidisciplinary practice, such as in this photograph. In contrast to the static walker in Pujol’s images, the figure in Cia Cará #1 makes an animated, ecstatic gesture that captivates the viewer in an altogether different way. 

Commentary by René Paul Barilleaux

• How do you experience moments of solitude?

María Magdalena Campos-Pons (b. 1959)

from The Calling
Polaroid Polacolor Pro photograph  |  MOCRA collection

María Magdalena Campos-Pons is a leading artist of the Afro-Cuban diaspora. Recurring themes in her work include maintaining ties with the people and land of Cuba, the special character and role of women’s discourse in society, and the nature of family communication.

This exuberant work is part of a series titled The Calling. “¡Cia Cará!” is an exclamation uttered in the Cuban religious tradition of espiritismo (Spiritism). Often accompanied by an abrupt gesture, it is usually exclaimed when a medium experiences a jolt or current in their body that indicates the presence of a spirit or spiritual force. In some instances, the exclamation and accompanying gesticulations may precede spirit possession.

Clothing, adornments, and objects found in Campos-Pons’ images carry multivalent meanings and are often connected with orishas (traditional Yoruban deities who are syncretized with Christian saints in Santería and other blended religions in the Caribbean).

• How do you experience and express moments of intense spiritual feeling? 

Campos-Pons discusses her work in Episode 7of the MOCRA Voices podcast, María Magdalena Campos-Pons.

Listen to the Podcast

Campos-Pons delivered the 2013 Kristen Peterson Distinguished Lecture in Art and Art History.

Watch the Video

Regina DeLuise (b. 1959)

archival pigment print  |  MOCRA collection

Baltimore-based artist Regina DeLuise is an accomplished photographer and educator. Her preferred instrument is the 8 × 10 view camera whose resulting platinum/palladium prints feature a delicate tonal range and distinctive surface quality. Her images capture intimate moments that whisper of the co-existence of spiritual and mundane worlds.

Travel has been integral to DeLuise’s work. This image was taken in the southeast Asian nation of Bhutan, where she spent a sabbatical volunteering with VAST (Voluntary Artists’ Studio, Thimphu), a group of dedicated artists providing Bhutanese youth with opportunities to develop artistic and vocational skills, share social responsibilities, and interact with national and international artists. About this image, she notes:

The state owns most of the temples in Bhutan, and no photographs are allowed inside those temples. This temple was built by a private individual, and I could take photographs there. Three or four monks reside there.

• Have you taken a journey that gave you a new perspective on the world or about yourself?

DeLuise discusses the work of her friend, artist Adrian Kellard, in Episode 2 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, Adrian Kellard.

Listen to the Podcast

Lore Bert (b. 1936)

collage with Japanese and Nepalese paper  |  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.

• What elements make a place sacred or special for you?

Damon Davis (b. 1985)

one-channel film, 3838 × 2160; 4:35
courtesy of the artist

one-channel film, 1920 × 1080; 3:25
courtesy of the artist

Based in St. Louis, Damon Davis is a post-disciplinary, Emmy Award-winning artist whose work spans video, music, photography, and public art. Co-director of the critically acclaimed documentary Whose Streets? chronicling the Ferguson uprisings, he also designed the Pillars of the Valley monument to Mill Creek Valley in downtown St. Louis. His work is featured in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Davis is drawn to three primary themes: myth, identity, and power. He emphasizes that myths are not relics of the past, but rather ideas and stories that shape our reality. They underlie social contracts that form our identities in ways we may not be aware of, and that dictate where we are situated in the dynamics of power. He observes the one can “either believe in” these myths, “or spend your whole life trying to break out of [them].”

The present films invite us to recognize the transcendent in everyday experience. Pop Quiz superimposes deceptively simple questions over videos that Davis took with his cellphone, some in St. Louis and some in the small village of Pueblo Garzon, Uruguay, during an artist residency. While the juxtapositions of image and text are sometimes humorous, the invitation is a serious one: Do we take time each day to recognize the deeper spiritual and mythic currents of our lives and reflect on our response to them?

Family Business assembles close-cropped areas of Davis’s own family photos, presented like a slide show. Accompanying ambient sound gives them the aspect of living memories that we are invited into. Little details like furtive glances during a church service hint at deeper stories we can only guess at. While deeply personal, the ambiguous images evoke mythic traditions that hold the reverence of ancestors and centrality of family as core spiritual values.

• What myths have influenced your life?

Davis discusses his work in the MOCRA Voices video, “Meditations: Black Expression, Abstraction, and the Spirit – Live!”

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