Step out of the ordinary, wet days of winter and into the devilish dark and uplifting light of less somber days. Step into a purgatorial place of saints and sinners.
MUSEO opens its traditionally edgy winter show, where art is pushed to its brink and conversations grow. “Saints and Sinners” opens Saturday, Jan. 22, with an artists’ reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at the downtown Langley gallery.
The show explores all things good and evil and in between, said gallery owner Sandra Jarvis.
Jarvis has invited about 30 local artists to conjure images of things light or dark, devilish or angelic. She asked them to consider saintly deeds and creatures underground, heavenly bodies and tortured souls, enlightened beings, wings, horns, faith, desperation, gluttony, discipline, confessions and, finally, Judgement Day.
“Why not liven up the darker days of winter with an edgy show that pushes the limits and blurs the lines between good and evil?” Jarvis said.
Artist Lisa Snow Lady said the paintings she submitted reflect a recent trip to Turkey, where she was inspired by Byzantine mosaics and frescoes which depicted the stories of the Bible. Her works, such as a reverse painting on glass titled “Madonna and Child,” were influenced by other works of art she saw at the Hagia Sophia museum and Chora Church in Istanbul.
“I’m not sure of what to expect with this show, but it sounds like it will be really interesting, with a vast array of characters,” Snow Lady said.
On the opposing side of Byzantine-inspired paintings is Sarah Palin. New to the winter show this year is garden columnist and author, and now artist, Valerie Easton, who said the theme got her thinking about today’s most blatant sinners who seem to be mostly politicians.
“And to my mind none is more blatant in her greed and hypocrisy than our Sarah. I had great fun collecting iconic visuals of Palin’s sins,” Easton said.
What emerged is a mixed-media visual journal of sorts, a form she’s been using for two years. This time around, she was inspired by the “Saints and Sinners” theme to mess around with paper, words and photographs to create a more political collage than she’s done before.
More noble figures on the saintly side are also depicted in the show.
A painting by Milo Duke called “St. Alexander On the Morning of the First Decimation,” depicts the Roman soldier in bed in green pajamas, graffiti on the wall, surrounded by his armor, sword and crucifix, and looking determined to defend his Christian faith.
Duke said the look of the painting was a deliberate mashup of the ancient and the modern.
The decimation refers to the killing of every 10th man, a tactic used by officers of the Roman army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers, or apparently, those who believed in Christ. Legend has it that St. Alexander escaped “the decimation” that morning, and many times after. Duke calls him the patron saint of cliffhangers. But he also represents the clash between a soldier’s duty to obey orders and the duty to one’s beliefs.
“What if the soldier is ordered to commit another sin?” Duke asked.
“Or to secularize the question, what if the soldier is ordered to commit a crime? It seemed to me that the conflict of duties that St. Alexander faced in the late third century are the kinds of conflicts of duty faced by soldiers every day in our time, and that makes him very relevant,” he said.
In a different twist on the theme, artist and filmmaker Richard Evan’s created a mixed-media installation titled “Please Don’t Shoot the Piano Player” as inspired by actor Charles Aznavour’s performance of Charlie Kohler in the film, “Shoot the Piano Player.”
Evans said in the François Truffaut film, Charlie is both saint and sinner, trapped as he is by the fate that led him from the stage as a concert pianist to his life playing the piano at a Parisian honky-tonk bar.
“Trapped in a classic existential pocket, the character of Kohler is lent considerable charm, perhaps even hope, by Aznavour’s presence,” Evans said.
Whether the favorite is the saint or the sinner, this is MUSEO’s time of year to step off the beaten path onto the marginal road of push-your-buttons art, and local artists never fail to answer the call with vigor.
Other artists in the show include Beth Wyatt, Buffy Cribbs, Bruce Morrow, Carl Ulmschneider, Cary Jurrians, Sollin Magney, Danielle Bodine, Danny Perkins, Denise Whitmore, Deon Matzen, Eric Purser, Inge Roberts, Jennifer De La Cruz, John Sarkis, Katherine Trigg, Katja Fritzsche, Lane Hill, Mark Skullerud, Michael Dickter, Michael Stadler, Peggy Juve, Randy Landon, Robbie Cribbs, Sandy Wainwright, Susan Jarvis, Terry Leness and Zia Gipson. Some artists, who may show up at the gallery unexpectedly with pieces that get in the show, are not listed here.
MUSEO is at 215 First St. in Langley. Call 221-7737 or click here for more information.
