Images above, left to right top to bottom: Hemba Warrior Figure, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mid-20th century, wood; Nuchu (healing doll), Kuna Indians, San Blas Islands, Panama, Mid-20th century, wood; Buddha, Thailand (Lanna), 19th century wood, lacquer, and gilt; Green Tara Tibetan-style Buddha, India, Late 20th century, bronze; Fringed-Mouth YEI Mask, Navajo, c. 1920; Mame Wate Mask, Ghana, Mid-late 20th century.

Image, left: Chinese Scholar’s Rock, Ex. Coll. Imperial Family, circa 1900, limestone, 15 x 21 x 9 inches

October 22 – November 3, 2011

We look at it and we do not see it;Its name is The Invisible.

We listen to it and do not hear it;Its name is The Inaudible.

We touch it and do not find it;Its name is The Subtle.

Lao-TzuTao Te Ching, c. 400 b.c.

Since the beginning of time, humans have depicted, danced, chanted, sung, and prayed to invisible entities or energies that are believed to have intercessionary powers with the creator or universal life force. From the earliest paintings of the “Beast Master” in prehistoric caves some 35,000 years ago, to the ancestral guardian figures in the indigenous cultures of Africa, Australia and the Americas, to the countless statues and paintings of saints and angels in the West, people all over the world have long sought help from spirit guides of one kind or another.

Iconoclastic cultures have used texts, alphabets, sacred spaces, abstract patterns, and narrative devices for the same purposes.

Virtually all hunter-gatherer societies utilized shamanic rituals centuries ago and many continue to do so today. Animistic beliefs still flourish in countries such as Japan, Iceland, Ireland, and Scotland where tradition and the forces of nature are particularly powerful and often overwhelming.

In the past 30 years, postmodern criticism vigorously dealt with long-repressed issues of gender, identity, racism, and the media in all the arts. Typically, however, all notions of the spiritual or religious were ignored or shunned, and any acknowledgement of a deity or efficacious spiritual messengers derided. Yet this is essentially an ahistorical position, and one which is challenged in the work of some of the most acclaimed artists of our time.

Movies such as the “Wings of Desire” films by Wim Wenders in the late 1980s, Tony Kushner’s acclaimed plays and subsequent television series “Angels Over America” from the 1990s, and Bill Viola’s prestigious videos dealing with metaphysical concepts, have all garnered international audiences and awards.

In popular culture, graphic novels, comic books and blockbuster movies such as Spiderman, Superman, Star Wars, Star Trek, the Tolkien trilogy, the X-Men, Thor, Transformers, Avatar, and countless others have never been more popular. Obsessions with aliens, the undead, and super-galactic creatures have also seeped into both low and high-brow culture. The Harry Potter books, second worldwide in sales only to the Bible, combine aspects of Christianity, Celtic lore, paganism, and mysticism while ticket sales to the movie series surpassed a billion dollars.

The topic of the numinous is one that supercedes institutional religion, for as humans we have always looked for help in

Sun Smith-Foret, Thug Angel / Tupac Resurrection, 2005 – 2011,mixed media textile, 134 x 90 inches, (courtesy Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, Mo)

Gear, Zenith 2 (detail), 2011, graphite, spray paint, vinyl on paper, 24 x 20 inches, (courtesy the artist).

order to address the unseen forces in our destinies. But who, or what, are these entities that we either believe in or have such intense longing for?

As Janece O. Hudson writes in her recent book, Into Your Dreams: “If monsters and other menacing creatures are at one end of the spectrum, angels, [and] beings of light. . . are at the other. These higher order beings may represent the very best aspects of ourselves or appear to impart a truth or give comfort. They may have come from the superconscious mind as proposed by [Roberto] Assagioli or [Edgar] Cayce, be archetypal as [Carl] Jung would suggest or deal with transpersonal self-actualization needs as defined by [Abraham] Maslow.”

Or are they real?

Each of the 21 artists participating in Celestial Terrestrials: Between Heaven and Earth has created deeply personal artworks relating to these concerns.

Jessica Kincaid’s beaded, glittering depiction of angels and animals from a traditional bible verse is a wonderful contrast to Nora Othic’s realistic rendering of a weary, tattooed Jesus illustrating a stanza from Leonard Cohen’s classic song “Suzanne.”

Richard and Theresa Montoya’s folkish retablo of Saint Nino de Atocha, the patron saint of prisoners, is not just visually appealing. This particular saint has a job to perform -- like many of the objects in this exhibit, such as the contemporary Baule spirit spouse, the Nuchu healing figures from the San Blas Islands, the Mame Wate mermaid mask from Ghana, and the Navajo Yei and Hopi cow kachina masks. If they are somewhat worn, it’s because they were used. They were never meant for the pristine life of a museum object.

They have ontological significance, and the more they are danced, rubbed, and invoked, the more greatly are they invested with meaning. Over time, they only become more powerful and appealing.

Jason Pollen’s painted wooden guardian totems are contemporary but heroic; they bear a close emotional rapport to the exhibit’s much older African Hemba male sculpture, a carving of an ancestral authority figure ever on the alert.

Grafitti artist Gear has combined his own delirious interpretations of the revered Indian goddess Kali clashing with that of a mythological raven for a totally contemporary spin on these ancient life/death deities. In the opposite vein,

Images above, left to right: Richard & Theresa Montoya, Santo Nino De Atocha, 2003, painted wood, 18 x 11 inches, (courtesy the artist); Marcus Cain, Growth Ring, 2011, acrylic, ink, latex, watercolor on panel, 14 x 11 inches (artwork courtesy Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art; image courtesy E.G. Schempf); Kim Lindaberry, N = R* • Fp • Ne • Fl • Fc • L (from the Traveler Project Series), 2011 archival pigmented digital print mounted on Di-Bond aluminum (artist’s proof), 73.5 x 45.5 inches, (courtesy the artist).

Christopher Leitch, while walking, one night, (1986) 2011, found materials, 14 x 19 x 60 inches, (courtesy of the artist).

Vivian Torrence’s tiny, fragile human and celestial beings inhabit different planes in her delicately colored collages, and we are not certain if they will ever meet.

For pure invention, Kim Lindaberry’s scarily realistic alien traveler and Marcus Cain’s pulsating, dissolving entities clearly inhabit universes one could spend a lifetime investigating.

Sun Smith-Foret’s “Thug Angel,” referring to the deceased rapper and pop figure Tupac Shakur, reminds us how beloved celebrities who die too young often gain even greater mythic significance once they are gone.

Throughout generations, stories and beliefs feed us spiritually as well. Dan Younger’s beaded construction of a soul encased in a glass box covered with angels is based on an Italian fable of the moment of death.

Diane Henk’s abstract paintings of spirit lines refer to the belief system of Navajo weavers, but such “spiritual x-rays” are also found in Australian aboriginal art, and in certain African objects as well.

Christopher Leitch’s text panel is at once a work of conceptual art, but simultaneously aligned with ancient Buddhist sutras which are repeated regularly as an aid to enlightenment.

Throughout time, spiritually-based tools have always been made and used as a way to contact higher beings and as a means to personal empowerment. Renee Stout’s conjuring vest refers to her African heritage and its tradition of speaking to the dead so as to benefit from their aid. Dylan Mortimer’s “Prayer Booth” is functional and mobile. John Sandbach’s professional website enables anyone to freely ask questions of his Oracle and receive an immediate answer. Though digitally based, Sandbach’s work is in a long tradition of such ecstatic readings as those channeled by the Oracle at Delphi and the Taoist based I Ching.

The Prayer Paddles of Tanya Hartman are inspired by everything from Medieval manuscript illuminations and

Images, top to bottom: Jason Pollen, Terrestrial, 2011, wood, wire, pigment, 7 feet x 10 feet x 10 inches, (courtesy the artist); Dan Younger, Another Lost Soul, mixed media box , 6.25 x 3.75 x 5.25 inches, (courtesy the artist); John Sand-bach, Twinklets webpage (detail), 2011, screenshot of the website www.JohnSandbach.com, dimensions variable, (courtesy the artist).

feather fans from the western Andes, but they also recall Navajo and Aboriginal bull roarers, Buddhist flags and African Egungun cloth, all objects in which wind is employed to blow prayers to the deities.

In an overtly political work, Linda Lighton conflates the form of a mandala, a Buddhist form for enlightenment, with that of a magnum 44, a tool that is made strictly for killing. Constructed from steel and porcelain, Lighton’s piece asks us to consider the very fragility of our existence.

The theme of nature, with all its references to higher and/or supernatural powers, is encompassed in much of the art in this show. Russell Easterwood’s trees stretch from the earth to the very top of the heavens, becoming their own version of Tree of Life imagery. The ethereal quality of Ron Slowinski’s ghostly but joyous abstract painting is derived both from the sacred mountains of the American Southwest and the mystical poetry of St. John of the Cross.

The twelve tiny hand-carved Japanese netsukes in this show invoke numerous deities, including Kappa, a water spirit known to capture little children who go into the water without permission. A Chinese spirit stone resembles a mountain, where it is believed the Immortals live.

While Ke Sook Lee’s invented, embroidered abstract figures float up to the heavens, Richard Welnowski’s video triptych of a live, bubbling volcano from Iceland suggests the most primal and formidable of energies – the merging of earth, air, fire and water. Like many who have spent extended time in isolated regions of nature, Welnowski reports that while there, “I always had the impression that I was watched, helped, and guided.”

Images above, top to bottom: Tanya Hartman, Prayer Paddle #10: To Remember, 2011, mixed media, 12 x 5 x 1 inches, (courtsy the artist); Russell Easterwood, Untitled (snow and trees), 2010, acrylic on paper 17.75 x 24 inches, (courtesy the artist).

Image above: Dylan Mortimer, Prayer Booth, 2003, aluminum, plastic, vinyl, 119 x 21 x 36 inches, (courtesy the artist).

Essay by Elisabeth Kirsch, Curator

Image above, right: Linda Lighton, 44 Magnum Mandala, 2011, (courtesy the artist and E.G. Schempf)

Front cover images, left to right, top to bottom: Nora Orthic, Suzanne: Verse 2, (courtesy the artist); Renee Stout, Conjuring Vest (front), 1996, mixed media, 28 x 17 x 4 inches, (courtesy of the John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation); Jessica Kincaid, Old Testament Superpowers, 2008, glass beads, silk thread, 16” x 20”, (courtesy Hollis Officer); Vivian Torrence, Auspicious Clouds, 2011, collage, watercolor, printed images, 9.5x14”, (courtesy the artist)

Back cover images, left to right: Ke-Sook Lee, Blossoms in the Sky (detail), 2011, hand embroidered thread, household linen, pigment and Embroidery hoop, dimensions variable, (courtesy the artist); Ron Slowinski, The Mountains Gave Plenty Light, (courtesy the artist)

Image, left, top to bottom: Richard Welnowski, A Cosmographical Triptych: Iceland (video still), 2010, digital video, (courtesy the artist); Diane Henk, Spirit Line (detail), 2002, acrylic paint on canvas, 60 x 30 inches, (courtesy the artist)

Greenlease Art Gallery at Rockhurst University1100 Rockhurst Road , Kansas City, MO 64110

Phone: 816.501.4407 | Email: anne.pearce@rockhurst.edu

GALLERY HOURS: Thursday — Saturday, noon - 5 p.m.or by appointment through the Gallery Director, Anne Pearce, at 816-501-4407.

Located between Van Ackeren Hall and Sedgwick Hall on the Rockhurst University Campus, the Greenlease Art Gallery is home to the University’s Van Ackeren collection of religious art. The gallery

also features space for temporary group and solo exhibitions.

www.Rockhurst.edu/Services/Gallery

Catalogue Design & Layout by Abby Rufkahr