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.
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.
HEC-TV spotlights Heaven and EarthHeaven 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. |
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:
Michael Anderson, Belleville, IL Adrian Aquilino, Richmond Heights, MO Carolyn Bailey, Macomb, IL Jill Beyder, St. Louis, MO Sophie Binder***, St. Louis, MO Lon Brauer, Granite City, IL Jim Burwinkel, St. Louis, MO Ann Croghan, St. Peters, MO Jo Jasper Dean, Chesterfield, MO Emily Denlinger, Cape Girardeau, MO Elizabeth Desrosiers, Chesterfield, MO Evin Dubois, Paducah, KY John Dyess, Eureka, MO Dina Fachin**, St. Louis, MO Cookie Ferratier, Springfield, IL Nina Figgs, Manchester, MO Dominic Finocchio, St. Louis, MO Carol A. Fleming, St. Louis, MO Janet Fons, St. Peters, MO |
Benjamin Franklin, St. Louis, MO Gaye Gambell-Peterson, St. Charles, MO Carrie Gibbs**, Mt. Vernon, IL Peter Gifford, St. Louis, MO Beth Goyer, Des Peres, MO Beata Grant, University City, MO Thomas Guetersloh, Murphysboro IL John Hardecke, Washington, MO Steve Hartman, Edwardsville, IL Vicki Hefty, Wildwood, MO W. (Joe) Hudson, Peoria, IL Tom Karges*, Rock Hill, MO Netra Bahadur Khattri, St. Louis, MO Connie LaFlam**, St. Louis, MO Gary Lang, Kirkwood, MO Jonathan Levy, Maryland Heights, MO Jean Lopez, St. Louis, MO Lara Mann, Champaign, IL Barbara Marshall, Chesterfield, MO Brian Mitchell, Ballwin, MO Fatemeh Nichols, Eureka, MO |
Kathy Ohlsen, St. Charles, MO * = Best of Show Award ** = Award of Excellence *** = Honorable Mention |
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
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: