Continuum (Continued): Figuration and Abstraction in the MOCRA Collection

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 Theater. 

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 famous 12th-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. How does our perception 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? 

linen fiber; ed. 3/36  | 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

• How have you experienced compassion? 

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. This recent addition to the MOCRA collection reflects Dill’s exploration of 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? 

Dill discusses her work in the MOCRA Voices video “Artist, Poet, Curator: A Conversation with Lesley Dill, Tom Sleigh and Rene Paul Barilleaux.”

Watch the Conversation

large-format Polaroid  |  MOCRA collection

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is a leading artist of the Afro-Cuban diaspora. Her work in a variety of media is found in important public and private collections, and she had a major, critically acclaimed installation in the 2013 Venice Biennale. 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? 

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons discusses her work in Episode 7 of the MOCRA Voices podcast. You can also hear her deliver the 2013 Kristen Peterson Distinguished Lecture in Art and Art History, titled "Rituals and Spirituality in the Performative Photographic Work of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons."

Listen to the Podcast 

Watch the Artist's Lecture

woodcut  |  courtesy of the estate of Frank LaPena

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.

LaPena’s art has been exhibited since 1960 in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Europe, Central and South America, Cuba, Australia, and New Zealand. He served as a consultant to museums including the de Young Museum (San Francisco), the Oakland Museum of California, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC).

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? 

large-format Polaroids  |  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.

This three-panel portrait comes from a body of work Bey produced in the mid-1990s using a large-format Polaroid camera. The majority of his models for these works are teenagers, especially African American teens. Bey says, “My interest in young people has to do with the fact that they are arbiters of style in the community; their appearance speaks strongly to how a community of people defines themselves at a particular historical moment.” In focusing on individuals who as a group historically have been excluded from portraiture (but frequently portrayed negatively in the media), Bey wanted his subjects “... to be possessed of the power to look, to assert oneself, to meet the gaze of the viewer. Having had so much taken from them, I want my subjects to reclaim their right to look, to see, and to be seen.”

• Can you recall times when you felt invisible, or when you felt seen? 

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? 

Daniel Goldstein discusses his work in Episode 17 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Consecrations, Part 1.

Listen to the Podcast

photographs and paper mounted on aluminum  |  courtesy of the artist

Born in Hong Kong and based in Portland, Oregon, Horatio Law is an 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 work tackles weighty subjects with ephemeral and unexpected materials, creating quiet, conflicting, meditative and evocative works. His projects often include a strong community process, and explore the effects of our current culture of consumption and the invisible foundations of a community — identity, memory and history. Recent projects include The AMP: AIDS Memorial Pathway in Seattle and the Urban Studies photographic series.

"Burnt Offerings" is part of a series of mixed-media portraits of Syrian refugee children that meditates on war’s physical and psychological toll as well as their hopes and dreams during their flight in search of safety with their parents. Images of the children, collected from news media on the Internet, are printed on origami paper and folded into butterflies. The origami are then singed to create unique patterns and shapes that reflect the trauma these young refugees endured.

• How might we respond, alone or together, to help heal situations of pain and suffering?

Law speaks about his work in Episode 17 of the MOCRA Voices podcast, MOCRA Memories – Consecrations, Part 2.

Listen to the Podcast

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

Vicente Telles is an innovative practitioner of the Santero 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 (“saint-makers”) 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?

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

Listen to the Podcast

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

Gabriel García Roman was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, raised in Chicago 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 Roman’s "Queer Icons" give visibility to underrepresented populations and draw inspiration from historical portraiture. 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 presentation.

García Roman notes,

"The subjects in the 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."

• Are there aspects of yourself that you feel like you have to hide?

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 we find countless souls crowding into the foreground and 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?

oil on wood panel  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist
oil on steel panel  |  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). The glass of red wine, broken bread, and white rose, refer back to the Last Supper and the suffering and death of Jesus, while pointing forward to the Resurrection and 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.

• Is there an everyday object that you could use as a metaphor for reflecting on deeper questions?

oil and acrylic on wood  |  MOCRA collection

Brandon Maldonado was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he grew up on the graffiti art of his barrio surroundings. His work embraces the history and culture of New Mexico, with its ties to Mexico and its mestizo legacy. He is perhaps best known for his Dia de los Muertos-themed images, which he has explored and evolved for over two decades.

In recent years Maldonado has immersed himself in research on santos and their makers, notably José Rafael Aragón (ca. 1795–1862). The practice of making and venerating santos (painted or sculpted images of saints) originated in Spain and was carried to territories that fell under Spanish colonial rule. New Mexican santeros (makers of santos) diverged from the models they found in imported oil paintings, statues, and devotional prints, to develop distinctive approaches to creating retablos (panel paintings) and bultos (statues). The santero tradition flourished from the mid-18th to late-19th centuries before falling into a period of decline. Yet it recovered and thrives today, responding to the needs of both religious devotees and art aficionados. Santos continue to be essential to the devotional practices of families and communities, but they are also appreciated as art objects.

Maldonado notes,

This piece employs a cubist style that I have developed for the past decade. It is a depiction of a santero or saint-maker typical to the Northern New Mexico villages such as Cordova and Truchas. The aesthetic style of the works of New Mexico santeros ... has a simple yet beautiful visual vocabulary of line, pattern, texture unseen in other parts of the world. At the core, there is a love for abstraction and simplification by its practitioners, nearly a century before Picasso and abstraction came into vogue. The composition of this piece is broken up into several small panels, which form the overall image. The assemblage attempts to mimic a cluster of retablos (panel paintings) in the way they are commonly hung.

• What influences have the places where you grew up had on your life?

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

Listen to the Podcast

oil, ink, 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. His search for meaning through his art takes him in the direction of the infinite, of opposites, of things mystical and unanswerable.

In the early 1990s, Maisner began to work on a much larger 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. 

This work features a grid of 108 squares, each containing a unique form in black. Some might serve as ideograms (symbols that represent some idea or concept), while others seem like abstract doodles. The recurring symmetry of the marks may call to mind the inkblots used in the familiar Rorschach test. The grid itself resembles a much-enlarged version of a checkerboard patterning technique called “diapering” used in manuscript illumination.

• Do you feel drawn more to the grid or to the hourglass shape in this work?

Maisner reflects on his work in the MOCRA Voices video “The Hand Acts Out a Joyous Dance”: Celebrating the Art of Bernard Maisner.

Watch the Panel Discussion

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.

Listen to the Podcast

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)

"Madonna and Child" is the hallmark piece of this set. The strong, iconic Mary emerges out of a long tradition of portraying Mary as Theotokos (“God-bearer”) and Sedes Sapientiae (“Seat of Wisdom”). She embraces the child Jesus, the most naturalistic of the figures in the altarpiece. The child has a melancholic expression that indicates, even at this early age, an understanding of all that is to come.

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.

• What do you notice about your responses to the more figural work in comparison to your responses to the more abstract work?

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

Explore the Series

acrylic and paper 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. For instance, Logan links this painting to the experience of walking through a volcanic lava field in Northern Iceland, a natural manifestation of creativity and rebirth from destruction.

"Dark Matter" blends science, history, and self-identity to explore concepts of decolonization and “Blackness.” Logan connects the hypothesis that “dark matter” accounts for about 85% of all matter in the universe, with his discovery that exactly 85% of his DNA is derived from African ancestors. The painting’s matte background, representing the negativity of a past devastated by slavery and oppression, contrasts with glossy masses that symbolize a vibrant Black identity resulting from the conjoining of oppression and rebirth. Logan says the painting is “also inspired by the Taoist concepts of balance, movement, flow, duality, and metamorphosis as a result of embracing the painful as well as the vibrant aspects of my racial heritage.

• What would you like to know about your heritage that remains a mystery to you?

Logan discusses his work in the MOCRA Voices video “A Conversation with Gary Logan.” "Dark Matter" is featured in the “Artful Being” video series.

Watch the Artist Talk

Watch the Artful Being video

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?

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

Listen to the Podcast

mixed media  |  MOCRA collection

From his childhood, Patrick Graham 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. Reminiscent of “Hand of God” images found in Medieval Jewish and Christian art, it suggests the power of outside intervention and the possibility of renewal and transformation. 

• Have you experienced moments of profound transformation in your life?

Learn more Graham in the MOCRA Voices video “Breaking Boundaries: A Conversation about the Art of Patrick Graham.”

Watch the Panel Discussion

cast iron  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

Stephen Luecking is a Chicago-based artist equally gifted in the fields of painting and sculpture. His expansive fields of interest include the history of art and mathematics, prehistoric engineering, and the application of mathematics and semiotics to his art.

As this three-tiered spire ascends, the number of sides diminishes with each new level, from five to four to three sides. The artist notes that it was inspired by a medieval cosmograph (a description or representation of the main features of the universe), representing the levels of creation from the terrestrial realm of earth, through the celestial realm of stars and planets, to the empyreum, or heavenly abode of God.

• How do you map out your world?

archival digital print  |  courtesy of the artist

In July 2003, Tom Kiefer began working part-time as a janitor and groundskeeper at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility near Ajo, Arizona. When given permission to collect food confiscated from migrants and asylum seekers and donate it to a local food pantry, he was deeply moved at finding personal belongings in the trash bins along with the food. These items, necessary for hygiene, comfort, and survival, were deemed “non-essential” or “potentially lethal” and seized and discarded by Border Control officials. Kiefer began to quietly rescue what items he could, and he resigned from his job in August 2014 to focus on photographing and documenting them. The ongoing project, "El Sueño Americano / The American Dream," commemorates the untold stories these objects embody, preserving traces of human journeys cut short.

"Belt Labyrinth" is one of Kiefer’s “mass assemblies,” which evoke both the great numbers of people arriving from diverse points of origin and the failure of convoluted immigration policies and systems. He frequently speaks of the “sacred” quality of these items and of the people they belonged to. From clothing to personal hygiene products to tools to cologne bottles, Kiefer’s photographs unravel preconceived notions and boundaries between “sacred” and “profane.” He notes:

"This work is about humanity, and the inhumanity of how we treat others, those who are the most vulnerable. ... This work is about the preciousness and the importance of everybody, how we’re interconnected—we need each other.”

• Have you ever realized that you were seeing someone as a member of a group rather than as an individual? Have you been on the other side of that experience?

The artist discusses his work in the MOCRA Voices video collection “Pertenencias”

Watch the Videos

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?

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

Watch the Panel Discussion

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.

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

Kahn reflects on his work in Episode 11 of the MOCRA Voices podcast.

Listen to the Podcast

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

Multidisciplinary St. Louis artist Jeffrey Miller is equally accomplished in visual art, performance, and design. 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. In the absence of an image of a saint, the shape defines a place of emptiness, gravity, and density. It also relates to train tunnels and boot heels, images that appear frequently in Miller’s work. Train tunnels serve as a symbol of passage to other realms, while the heel of a boot or shoe evokes sacred sites where the footprint of a holy person is impressed into the ground.

Miller is attuned to the materials he uses in his works. His icons include materials that are often undervalued or discarded but have transformative potential. For instance, lead is transmuted through alchemy into gold, while wax is indispensable in the process of casting metal sculptures.

• Do you ever find yourself focusing more on a container than on its contents?

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.

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

paper sculpture  |  MOCRA collection • a gift of the artist

A working artist for over 20 years, Madison, Wisconsin-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?

unique gelatin silver photograms  |  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. He writes, “The intersection of art, religion, and science offers an unending list of questions to answer and answers to question.”

In the "Wafer and Wine" series, Kessmann offers 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 apparently to the senses) the body and blood of Jesus. Through evocative images derived from communion wafers that were saturated in wine, the artist probes whether scientific, measurable certainty is capable of giving undeniable confirmation of the truth that spiritual, faith-based understanding gives believers. Are these blood corpuscles, or perhaps stars and planets?

Kessmann notes, “Seeing is not always believing, just as believing should not always require seeing.” With these works,

a dramatic transformation has taken place. These substances have become something other than what they once were. These are objects for contemplation. They will not provide any undeniable proof, but if given time, they just might help us to answer that which they initially had refused to reveal.

• Do you hold any beliefs, things you know to be true, even when others might consider them to be irrational?

screenprint, ed. 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, featuring Mary Reid Brunstrom.

Listen to the Podcast

silver, gold leaf, and acrylic on wood  |  MOCRA collection

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 beautiful triptych, traversed by countless silverpoint lines, is in part inspired by Schwalb’s travels in the Judean desert, where she drove in and out of sandstorms. Schwalb also attributes the genesis of this body of work to a period of research at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. While studying illuminated manuscripts, she realized that the spacing guides and text guidelines were made in silverpoint. Those grids, together with memories of the desert, became the basis for this work.

The intricate patterns of lines evoke a lush field of wheat, echoing biblical images of a land of abundance. The vertical forms in the middle of each panel may bring to mind the columns of fire and smoke that led the Israelites through the desert during the Exodus.

• Have you ever taken a trip that changed your perspective on life?

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

Listen to the Podcast

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 in the world?

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. In 2006 she was named a MacArthur Fellow (the “genius grant”). 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.”

Sikander’s 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. Fluent in a variety of artistic media, she 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?

gold leaf and bole on wood  |  MOCRA collection

Michael Tracy died on June 15, 2024. He was an artist, author, and advocate for historic preservation in San Ygnacio, Texas, where he made his home. Constant throughout his incarnations were his restless intellect, his humanism and passion for social justice, and his keen sense of the power of art and ritual in unmasking the deeper currents of history and society. Since the earliest years of MOCRA, visitors have encountered his grand Triptych and, in recent years, his searing Romero Cross. Read more about Michael in the wall text accompanying those works in the nave gallery.

This work is a model for the 18-foot-wide "Retablo de la Paz Sagrada [Altarpiece of Sacred Peace]" located in the subterranean Emmanuel Chapel in the Crypt of the Bishops at the Catholic cathedral in Corpus Christi, Texas. It is a remarkably understated work with simple, clean geometric lines. Squares of gold leaf are applied irregularly over a reddish clay underpainting, called bole, that enhances the golden tone of the leaf. While perhaps Tracy wasn’t concerned for precisely positioning the gold leaf on this model, the effect does suggest a metaphor for the meeting of the mortal (clay) and the divine (gold) that takes place in a sacred space such as a chapel.

We invite you to compare this triptych (three-panel painting) with Tracy’s monumental "11th, 12th, and 13th Stations of the Cross for Latin America: La Pasión" in the sanctuary gallery.

• What places bring you in touch with a sense of the divine or an inner peace?