Wisdom of the Desert Exhibit
   
 
Duncan Simcoe
 

Sep 8th - Oct 13th

   
Opening Reception Sep 8th 2-5pm
   
Art-Talk Sep 21st
   
Closing Reception Oct 13th 2-4pm
    Curated by: Jonathan Pols, Art professor Biola University
   
 
   

A physical desert is defined by lack–specifically the lack of water.  Yet, in most wisdom traditions, the desert’s lack makes it a landscape of inward flourishing: testing, temptation, self-revealment, and transformation all occur there.  While many have intentionally sought the isolation and clarity of actual desert spaces, the condition of being “in the desert” may happen to each of us at any time, mostly against our will.  However we find ourselves there, from its lack the desert offers us its wisdom, which we receive with trembling hands. 

This exhibition invites a group of artists working in various modes and media, to offer, in visual form, the wisdom the desert has worked in them.  While works that take up the desert as a physical/visual site/sight are welcome, so too are works that emanate from the inner desert wanderings that attend us all.  The “desert” is broadly defined here as physical, spiritual, psychological, mythic, and/or metaphoric space.     

Wisdom of the Desert takes its name, and loosely its theme, from Thomas Merton’s translation of the collected sayings of the desert fathers (Wisdom of the Desert, Burnes and Oates, 1997). 

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Duncan Simcoe
 
 
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
Eleanor Greer
 
 
Tim Timmerman
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    Artists
   
Luke Aleckson
Dan Callis
Kari Dunham,
Eleanor Greer
Duncan Simcoe
  Tim Timmerman
Christine Turner
Hannah Varamini
Joshua Watson
Laura Webster
   
   
     
 
Tim Timmerman
  This exhibition was made possible, in part, by the support of the Biola University Department of Art and the School of Fine Arts and Communication (SoFaC). 
     
     
       
     
© 2019 Inland Empire Museum of Art
All Art © by The Artist