Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth January 18-February 12, 2020. FREE opening reception Saturday, January 18, 5-7 p.m.

Please join Art Saint Louis for Heaven and Earth featuring new artworks by 59 regional artists from Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky.

Graphic design by Emily Amberger.

Heaven and Earth is an all media juried visual art exhibition features artworks that are inspired by or about heaven and earth, heavenly bodies & visions, the skies, limbo, paradise, purgatory, hell, and more. For this juried exhibit, 247 artworks in all media were submitted by 104 St. Louis regional artists for consideration by Jurors David Brinker and Sun Smith-Foret from which they selected 61 artworks by 59 artists from Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky for the final exhibition. This exhibit includes ceramics, collage, drawing, encaustic, glass, handmade paper, mixed media, painting, pastels, photography, printmaking, pyrography, scratchboard, sculpture, and textiles.   HEC-TV spotlights Heaven and Earth Heaven and Earth is presented January 18-February 12, 2020. Please join us for our free opening reception on Saturday, January 18, 5-7 p.m. Also join us for our February 1 free event: Coffee with the Artists Gallery Talk at 10 a.m. Regular gallery hours are Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Closed Sundays. We invite you to view images of all 61 of the artworks featured in this exhibit as well as gallery views and highlights from our opening reception in our Facebook album here. Congratulations to artists Tom Karges, Jonathan Levy, Sharron Pollack and Michelle Sass on the sales of their works from this exhibit. Thank you to HEC-TV and Producer Christina Chastain for their video piece on the exhibit which you can view here. We are very honored to have the opportunity to work with David Brinker and Sun Smith-Foret as our Jurors for this exhibit. David Brinker is Director, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Saint Louis University. Brinker joined the staff of MOCRA in 1995 as a Museum Assistant after which he served as Assistant to the Director (1996-2005) and then Assistant Director (2005-2019); David was appointed as Director in 2019. He has been involved in over 60 exhibits both at MOCRA and elsewhere, selecting and developing exhibits, designing the installation, writing interpretive texts, producing graphic design, grant writing, interpretive tours, and much more. Brinker developed MOCRA's Voices podcast (2012-17) which includes video episodes. He holds membership in a number of professional and service organizations. David holds a B.A. in English Literature & Certificate in Spanish, Saint Louis University (1994) and Master of Arts in Pastoral Science with a concentration in Liturgical Theology, Aquinas Institute of Theology (2010). Sun Smith-Foret is an Illinois-based artist, educator, curator, and retired Private Practice Psychotherapist. As a studio artist, Sun has been formally active in textile construction, quilts, sculpture, functional, and amuletic objects since finishing graduate school at Washington University. Her undergraduate work was in art history, art and architecture. Her body of large-scale quilts refer to film and popular culture and have been exhibited nationally. Sun holds a B.A. in History of Art & Architecture (1983) and MFA in Printmaking (1986), and MSW, Mental Health & Family Therapy (1992) all from Washington University in St. Louis. Sun served as adjunct facult at Washington University School of Fine Arts (1987-1996) where she taught core design, composition and color theory. She currently teaches 3-d textile design workshops throughout the region. She has served on the Board of Directors of Art Saint Louis (2006-09) and Craft Alliance (1976-79). Having exhibited her work in shows throughout the U.S. and Canada since 1978, Sun's work is represented by Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

PARKING RECOMMENDATIONS
There are parking METERS on Pine Street and Olive Street & other nearby streets. Parking meters run 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. Monday—Saturday (yes, until 7 on Saturday). Fines are steep ($20), so don't let your meter expire. For area parking lots & garages, click here. You can also download the handy Parkmobile app, whereby you can pay for and monitor your parking meter via your smart phone.

Hourly parking is available in the PARK PACIFIC GARAGE on Olive just West of Tucker. Parking is at your own expense. For garage parking, pay by credit via the machine in elevator bay no more than 15 minutes prior to departure OR pay by credit upon exiting the garage (at the gate). Be sure to take your parking receipt/ticket with you when you exit your car to visit the Gallery or you won't be able to reenter the garage to get to your car. Your parking ticket is your key to get back in to the garage. Art Saint Louis does not validate parking.

The Gallery is easily accessible by taxi, rideshare and PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION with MetroLink and MetroBus with MetroBus stops on Olive Street and Tucker right near the building.

 The 59 featured artists in Heaven and Earth are:

Jurors' Statements

  “Jurying artwork is a joyful if sometimes daunting engagement. The series of acts required by a Juror require familiarity with the basics of design and process, of form, proportion, color, texture, relationship of materials, excellence in execution, content, meanings, and themes, historic and psychological implications. Putting together an Installation  with the limitations of a specific space and the constraints of stated content implies the necessity of careful editing from a large set of possibilities in many media, but most importantly open minds. It is an exciting, demanding, and rewarding process. We looked very thoughtfully, several times, at images of 247 artworks submitted by 104 artists. Eventually we narrowed to 61 works by 59 artists for this juried group show.

  Two Jurors are able to discuss each and every choice in person. The discussion itself is revealing about the  chosen theme, in this case the eternal human wondering and discourse about Heaven and Earth, Seen and Unseen, Hope and Resolution, Sacred and Mundane, Body and Soul, Material Means and Thought. We experienced duality and overlap in the thoughtful works submitted and in our own selection process. I am grateful to Robin Hirsch-Steinhoff and Art Saint Louis for the opportunity, and to David Brinker Co-Juror for his intelligence, aesthetic savvy, and good humor.”

— Sun Smith-Foret MFA MSW

  "I thank Robin Hirsch-Steinhoff and Art Saint Louis for inviting me to serve as co-Juror for this exhibition. It was delightful to meet and collaborate with Sun Smith-Foret. Our viewpoints were at turns complementary and divergent, and I enjoyed being challenged to reconsider works from a fresh perspective.
  The exhibition title calls to mind Hamlet’s observation, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” suggesting that the submitted work might head in any number of directions: metaphorical, literal, reverent, acerbic. Coming from my work at MOCRA, with its interfaith scope, I also wondered, “Whose heaven? Whose earth? Whose hell?” Nowadays notions of a tangible heaven or hell may seem quaint, when technologies allow us to visualize the far reaches of the cosmos and microscopic biological processes, challenging traditional religious conceptions and offering fertile ground for reimagining and re-imaging those ancient notions. Yet traditional understandings of heaven and hell still hold powerful sway as matters of faith, or at the least limning the terrain of imagination. Do heaven and hell follow after “this mortal coil,” or are they transitory states that one can enter into in any moment?
  The submitted works explored all of these possibilities and more. Landscape featured prominently, both recognizable locales and imagined spaces, but hinting at deeper wells of meaning. Horizons (literal or metaphorical) were prevalent, suggesting a natural association with futures and ultimate destinies. There were mountains and heights, traditional places for interfacing with the divine, whether immanent or transcendent. Other works adopted alternative perspectives, aerial or subterranean.
  Counterbalancing the terrestrial works, other artists went cosmic, depicting stellar nurseries and unfathomable energies. Some of the works seemed grounded in moral visions, grappling with personal brokenness or intractable social concerns. Some works were more literal, evidently based in personal conviction or religious faith or spiritual practice, while yet others were tongue-in-cheek and playful. A few were couched in the language of myth, literature, or art history, or structured on sacred geometries.
  Overall, I am struck by how expansive these selected works are in theme and mode of expression through diverse media. These artists have grappled with the eternal and its implications for the here-and-now, and given the rest of us an opportunity to reflect for ourselves."

— David Brinker , Director, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art

Photograph by Greg Barth.SPECIAL EVENT
COFFEE WITH THE ARTISTS: SATURDAY GALLERY TALK
Saturday, February 1, 10-11:15 a.m.    FREE

Please join us at Art Saint Louis on Saturday, February 1, at 10 a.m. for our free Coffee with the Artists Gallery Talk and meet four of the featured artists in Heaven and Earth. Guests can enjoy complimentary coffee tastings courtesy of Catalyst Coffee Bar while the artists talk about their works on view in the exhibit, discuss the media that they use and the various techniques that they apply to making their form of artwork. The artists may also bring in samples of their other works or also present a demo of their particular media & techniques. Guests will walk with the artists through the Gallery as they talk about their works on view in the exhibition. This event is FREE & open to the public.

• Brian Mitchell, sculpture
• Steve Springmeyer, photography
• Kentrell Strong, drawing, painting
• Sharron Pollack, printmaking

Some of the 61 artworks featured in Heaven and Earth:

Thomas Guetersloh, Murphysboro IL. "Into The Light.” 2018. Acrylic on Canvas, 19”x23”. $2,340.	Steve Springmeyer, St. Louis, MO. “but a 2x4 brace couldn’t hurt, right?” 2016. Photograph, 17.5”x17.5”, $115.	Janice Rockwell, Macomb, IL. “Mindscape-The impasse.” 2018. Watercolor, Mixed Media, Collage, 15”x20.5”. $375.
Peter Gifford, St. Louis, MO. “Sunrise Above the Clouds.” 2019. Photograph on Metal, 30”x20”. $500.	Beata Grant, University City, MO. “The Jeweled Net of Indra.” 2019. Digital Art, 18”x22”. $250.	Janet Fons, St. Peters, MO. “Starlight.” 2019. Oil on Canvas, 30”x30”. $1,395.
Carrie C. Gibbs, Mt. Vernon, IL. “Learning to Fly.” 2019. Ceramics, 12.5”. $125. This artwork was selected by our exhibit Jurors for an Award of Excellence.	Kentrell Strong, St. Peters, MO. “Ascension.” 2019. Gouache, Watercolor, India Ink on Paper, 30”x24. $1,200.	Kim Swick, O’Fallon, MO. “False Authorities.” 2019. Acrylic, Ink, Pastel on Canvas, 30”x24”. $400.
John Dyess, Eureka, MO. “Formation.” 2017. Oil over Digital Canvas Print, 33”x32.5”. $850.	Evin Dubois, Paducah, KY. “Flap Flap (Gestures from Within).” 2016. Plaster, Chicken Wire, Steel, 8”x15”x24”. $500.	Fatemeh Nichols, Eureka, MO. ”Zamin (earth).” 2019. Acrylic/Resin, 22”x24”. $375.