The Beautiful: A CIVA Exhibition

On view: April 23 - June 16, 2019

Panel Discussion on Beauty with Wayne Roosa, Carrie Peffley, and Angela Shannon: Wednesday, April 24 at 6pm. The Underground, Brushaber Common, 2nd level. Reception in the Olson Gallery following the talk.

CIVA Conference Reception: Thursday, June 13 from 7:30 - 9pm, Olson Gallery, CLC Building, 2nd level.

The Beautiful features thirty-three original artworks, carefully selected to speak to the theme of Beauty as it is found in a fallen world. Encounters with beauty are essential to human flourishing. Indeed, such experiences capture our imagination and animate our souls; they invite us to pause and consider the nature and meaning of our material world and the one who created it all. In the modern period, artists often had a conflicted relationship to beauty. On one hand, they were drawn to beauty's sublime qualities. On the other, they realized that a superficial understanding of beauty could be either a means to avoid the world's suffering or a charm that incites consumer desire. Nonetheless, our need for beauty remains. In the shadow of Adam and Eve's fall from grace there exists what some describe as a "broken beauty" -- beauty that captures heart and mind while contending with the fallen nature of our world. This exhibit gathers contemporary works of art executed in a variety of media that bear witness to beauty as it appears to us in the complex landscape of contemporary culture.

Featuring works by: Wayne Adams, Lynn Aldrich, Chris Anderson, Grace Carol Bomer, Sandra Bowden, John Cobb, Joe Cory, Tessa Davidson, Robert Eustace, Christine Forsythe, Donald Forsythe, Donald Furst, Bill Haveron, Asher Imtiaz, Josie Lewis, Lisa Line, Rick Love, Cherith Lundin, Catherine Prescott, Jeremie Riggleman, Stephen Simmerman, Kenneth Steinbach, Nathan Stromberg, Lauren Tilden, Michael Ulrych, Madison Vander Ark, Tim van Laar, Michelle Westmark Wingard, and Carling Wong-Renger.

The exhibit is made available through CIVA | Christians in the Visual Arts.