TRUST

*PRO-CHOICE*, custom hanger: wood and wire.

My art practice investigates diverse relationships within natural and manmade environments. Fascinated by alternative realities, I strive to create new narratives, perspectives, and theories. The goal is to identify how patterns and symbols of influence impact perception, social behavior, institutions, history, and truth.

As a practicing artist for almost twenty years, I strive to exhibit in venues that support all communities. The upcoming In God We Trust: Reflections on Religion in America exhibit at Hera Gallery and Educational Foundation delivers. According to the venue’s website. “Hera Gallery is the 5th oldest women founded project art space in the United States. Our non-profit, artist-run organization has continued to stimulate discussion and challenge perceptions for over 40 years. This creative space has allowed countless artists a place for transformation, exploration, and community with one another.”

The exhibition opportunity peaked my interest due to current political policies and structures. From the artist’s call: “The exhibition, In God We Trust: Reflections on Religion in America, is an exploration of both the diversity and ubiquity of faith in America, and the complex ways in which religion intersects with American culture. At the junction of religion and culture in America, contemporary and historical issues of race, gender, politics, economics, law, medicine and science have been informed by faith. Religion has been used to justify cultural phenomena whose impacts have had both positive and negative consequences. Religion has been used to justify oppression, xenophobia, racism, sexism, and classism; yet it has also been a force of social good through community building, offering hope in dark times and providing a counterpoint to oppression.”

My artwork DOES YOUR GOD APPROVE? was selected by juror Nezka Pfeifer. She is a curator and has worked at numerous museums including the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, and Berkshire Museum. Pfeifer’s exhibitions are diverse from science to art disciplines.

*DOES YOUR GOD APPROVE?*, plastic and aluminum.

DOES YOUR GOD APPROVE? artwork description: President Trump revels in his cruel policy of children and infants being held in “Tender Age” shelters a.k.a. tents, cages, and detention centers. Some politicians and leaders contort bible verses into perverted religious interpretations to justify abhorrent behavior. America’s disturbing history cowers under malicious and spurious faith to rationalize slavery, Native American boarding schools, and Japanese-American internments.

Dmitri Vrubel’s *My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love* in Berlin, Germany.

In a free utopian civilization, the definition of faith remains a personal choice. Basic human decency must transcend above religious doctrine. I’ll follow Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus poem: “… Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”