enlighten

Solo opening this last week, memorable.  We drive through one wild monsoon storm to get there.  The weather only adds to the event.

I enter the space and my eyes land…across the room, on my newest painting, which is lit up and center stage. Cacti speckled mountain show jut beyond it. I am pleasantly surprised. I’d been concerned for a while, that it would read as crucifix more than anything. I didn’t want that. I knew the connection would be made, but I also wanted other things to come through.

It just so happens the structure of the building (student services on the college campus) that houses the gallery is influenced by  church architecture, or perhaps in this case, a mission.  I’d studied church layout in graduate school, I understand it’s very precise in the sort of experience it wishes to create for the people moving through it.

This building has what could be a nave, a transept, and an apse, particular areas of a church building. I  didn’t really understand this, until physically there, the day I deliver art work. I wonder out loud, if the new painting will really take on a crucifix, in the setting.  Well then, lets just play it up, I decide.  I ask if the painting can hang in the area of the apse. Light it up. Let it be. I leave trusting they’ll do a fine job hanging everything.

I’ve mentioned earlier, the exhibit consists of a few works from most of my series’ of the last decade. The one new figurative work, here/now takes on the form of presenter. And for me it does present the sacred.  It’s titled Creative Structure, and has much more behind it. But here in this space, it deliberately sits at a transition point, an area of transformation. The center, perhaps the nave, is empty but for a few seats off to the sides, for visitors.  Walls on either side hold artwork, within framed niches. The space is sacred space by the very nature of it being an art gallery.

The reception brought in a steady stream of visitors. I heard the food was excellent.  I spoke with guests much of the night and didn’t get to taste it. The evening was cool and electrical in more ways than one. The photo of the lighting didn’t come through…too bad, it’ll just have to sit in my memory.

The exhibition, A Constant Vital Commotion, runs to Nov. 5th.