Exhibitions

Above: Marc Chagall, Samson Destroys the Temple

Marc Chagall holds a singular place in the canon of modern painters. Melding symbolic elements and iconographies from the traditions of Jewish Hasidism, eastern Orthodoxy and western Christianity, as well as incorporating motifs drawn from his Russian cultural roots and his fondness for France, Chagall created a dynamic and personally significant series of Bible-based images. Examining issues of historical context and evolving religious sensibilities, MOBIA's exhibition represents an important moment in the reappraisal and deepening understanding of the artist's intriguing and unique images of biblical heroes, prophets, and scenes of the crucifixion.

Above: "Not now, ever." Rolled and painted aluminum, 2008

Transfluence brings together familiar visual forms - paintings, drawings, and sculpture - to concentrate on a subject beyond our experience. Two- and three-dimensional images pose questions essential to an inquiry that crosses cultures, on the nature of grace. They appear to reference forms we know, yet when juxtaposed, intertwined, or fully melded with their opposites, each is not neutralized but intensified, and a new order is indicated. Is what we see corporeal or spiritual; actual or evanescent; beautiful or terrible; a whisper, a touch, or an irrestistible, consuming force? The effects of time and transformation are both implied and directly evident in the images, as external and inherent color and light change as we observe, and as figure and ground vie for dominance. We are unsure if the implied time is measured in milliseconds or millennia, or if the transformations will lead to successful outcomes or dead ends. The surface of each art work reflects its viewers, and it is our recognition and questioning of the elements present that create meaning, as a conscientious observation of natural forms will do. But are these natural forms, or are nature and our experience only the beginning? What will the inquiry do to us in terms of time and transformation, and what can we discover of grace, within and without?