On Saturday, August 30, the Templeton Honors College officially opened its Merriman Art Gallery, located in Templeton Hall. The ceremony welcomed everyone in Eastern’s community to the gallery as well as artists Bruce Herman and Edward Knippers, whose works are featured in the first exhibit, “The Body: Broken | Falling | Rising.” Both the gallery and the exhibit are exciting additions to the campus, and the conversation that began in the opening talk continues between the paintings, the building, and the campus as a whole.
Both Herman and Knippers are influential and highly respected Christian artists, and this exhibit marks the first time that their works have been displayed together. While both of their works emphasize the role of the body in Christianity, Knippers’ work (identifiable by its darker and muted tones contrasted by color) focuses on Biblical and theological imagery, while Herman’s work (identifiable by its bright colors and the continual appearance of the skull) focuses on the tension we face between death and life. Knippers shared his hope that his works would help the viewer “[be] able to address their physicality.” Herman described his works as our interaction with death, at times a wrestling struggle and at others a dance.
Williams and Herman noted the continuity between the pieces, the color and life from Knippers’ work spilling into and interweaving with Herman’s. They also spoke on various unintentional imagery repetitions, such as a snake in Knippers’ “Joseph in the Pit” seemingly appearing in Herman’s “Death Be Not Proud.”
“The theme of this show draws together threads that have been woven throughout their respective bodies of work for decades,” Williams said in an article before the opening. Now that the pieces have been brought together, their conversation has finally begun.
“Everybody has been in a conversation at some point in their life where they felt like they could barely stay with it [because] it was so exciting. There’s you, there’s this other person, and there’s something between you called the conversation. It’s a lot, and it’s changing you even as you’re in that dialogue, and I feel like that’s what’s happening right now. The pieces are conversing [with] one another. They’re probably laughing at us,” Herman said.
Artist Background
Left to Right: Williams, Herman, Knippers
Knippers, early in his career, began to notice the figure taking center stage in his work, and he wrestled with its meaning. He moved to Paris with his wife to continue his study, working over 40 hours a week with only Sundays off. He loved the figure, but had no idea “what in the world it had to do with me.” One night, as he and his wife attended a showing of Sergei Diaghilev’s “The Prodigal Son” ballet with the set design done by Georges Rouault, the answer to his question of the figures came across the stage.
“ All of a sudden, at the end when the prodigal son was crawling almost nude across the set and into the father’s arms, I knew it was the narrative,” Knippers said. “That was what the figure was for me and how it should be used.”
Herman had already been established as an artist before he converted to the Christian faith as an adult, and at first he struggled to find fellow artists who were Christians. While teaching a few college classes, he was directed toward a conference where Christians in the visual arts were sharing their works. There, he connected with a reporter from The Washington Times and became more involved with the organization that hosted the conference. He valued being able to work with people “who really thought about their faith and how it connects with art making,” and credits a large part of his formation as an artist of the Christian faith to their influence.
“My faith is not a set of beliefs,” Herman said, “It’s a relationship. My faith begins where my rational explanation of things goes as far as it can and stops. I would say that my faith is about that mystery, that paradox, the things that can’t be said and the signature of my art. It’s an encounter with a living being who is God, and it’s addressing God, it’s addressing the world, it’s addressing you.”
The Exhibit
The exhibit’s title introduces the theme of the body in various stages, but the other main theme of this exhibit is our human experience with death. Both artists’ works seem to interact with death, sometimes in despair and anxiety, other times with peace or even joy.
“I believe that in Christ, God suffers. We know suffering, we know loss; every human’s story is shot through with losses… that’s the broken part for me. There’s been death in my family, but when death came for my mother, it was kindness. It was a mercy, and [that is part of how] I represented death; both as slightly scary, but also at times silly,” Herman said.
That lightheartedness to death can be seen in several of Herman’s paintings, with death at one point enamored by a shamrock and at another wearing schoolboy pants as an adolescent. Knippers’ work also seems to play with similar ideas of death in this brighter light, with colors exploding from his figures or the scene of the broken Christ holding the colorful bread and wine in the tomb.
The overall wrestle with death is an interesting topic for the gallery, especially as the inaugural exhibit for both the gallery and the building. Herman and Knippers reflected on the phrase “memento mori,” which means to “remember your death” and acts as a reminder to meditate on your mortality. The meditation is not meant to be a dark cloud, similar to how the death personified in the exhibit is at times playful or bright.
“Maybe it’s the perfect theme for our first show at the birth of a new building,” Williams said. “It reminds us of [death] so that we are not too caught up in the structure of this place and the beauty of this place. It is glorious to have it, but this too shall pass. We will pass and this building will pass, but it is a reminder that God will not pass.”
The exhibit will continue to remain on display until December 16th, and it is highly encouraged that everyone visit the gallery before it leaves. Make sure to celebrate and reflect in both the life and death of the gallery while you have the chance.