Are We Alike?
Image: Megan Knobloch Geilman / Sam Zauscher
By Richard L. Bushman
Unlike earlier themes in the Church’s triennial international art exhibition, this year’s show, the 12th since 1987, invites theological exploration. Themes like the 10th exhibition’s Tell Me the Stories of Jesus or the 6th exhibition’s Latter-day Saints Yesterday and Today called for illustration of well-known events. This year’s All Are Alike Unto God [2 Nephi 26:33] requires speculation. It present artists with a theological puzzle: How can we be alike unto God when we are so different in our national cultures and religions, our complexions and our genders, our temperaments and our tastes? People don’t want to be like everyone else. Muslims don’t want to be Catholics. Most Africans do not want to be Europeans. How do you depict some essential sameness that makes us alike before God while still preserving the personal peculiarities that are essential parts of our natures?
More than a dozen of the 148 artists in the exhibition solved the puzzle by filling their canvases with replications of a single object—stones, or blobs, or tiny bowls, or flowers, or hands—that are both similar and different. The blobs are of differing shapes and colors, even different sizes, while still of the same basic type. The bowls are made of different materials, some with pedestals, some not, some one color, some another. An up-to-date depiction titled God’s Zoom fills the canvas with faces in the squares which we have become so familiar with in the last few years.
The most ingenious of these replication paintings looks into the water at a host of sea shells of about the same size and color, but when the viewer steps back a few feet the face of an Island woman can be detected looking out from the bottom of the sea. I was amused and intrigued by the painting of stacks and stacks of books by Leslie M. W. Graff, of slightly different sizes and colors. How interesting to think of people telling their stories in books with God as reader, listening to what we have to say.
Leslie M. W. Graff, “352 Volumes” All images reproduced with permission of the artists.
The replication series struck me as ingenious and beautiful but not necessarily moving. I was more touched by paintings that focused on individuals. They turned the question of being alike unto God into another query: Will God include me among those he listens to. Colby Sanford’s From the Mere Confines of My Heart has a woman outside a house in the darkening evening, pleading to be heard. The unlit house, no more than a dark shadow in the painting, is home but also ominous. Is the life inside too much for this woman?
Colby Sanford, “From the Mere Confines of My Heart”
In the same spirit, Abigail Palmer’s All the Colors Inside of Me depicts the face of a blond little girl, looking at us with pleading eyes. The slashes of bright colors making up her face suggest the complexity of her inner life. Can anyone help her?
Abigale Palmer, “All the Colors Inside of Me”
The question these glimpses pose is deeply personal: Will God include me among the people he hears? Another query addresses the question of God as judge. Are the righteous and the wicked also alike unto God? The scriptures are filled with divisions imposed by God Himself: sheep and goats, people on the right hand and people on the left, heaven and hell, three degrees of glory. Against the similarities of the multiple objects paintings, these scriptures remind us of the divide between the obedient and the rebellious. Are souls on both sides of the line alike unto God?
The artists who depict Lehi’s vision of the iron rod and the great and spacious building may have had this issue in mind. They take on the theological problem of being all alike in its strongest form: Are those who dwell in the spacious building like those who hold to the iron rod? Difference and judgment are paramount in Lehi’s vision. The river marks the divide. How then are all alike? The rod and building image suggests that alike unto God means alike in having a choice. Joanne McLeish’s Tapestry of Rescue and Redemption (available on the exhibition’s website) shows people leaving the spacious building and wading through the river to the iron rod on the other side. Even inveterate sinners can return to God. “All alike” does not mean the same end for all; it means the same opportunity to choose. These explorations add a sobering reminder to the seemingly unqualified acceptance of the alike scripture. You still have to decide for yourself what you want and be dealt with accordingly.
A happier version of the same theme is Joseph Banda’s Come to Christ (available on the exhibition’s website). Rather than the somber pictures of malicious souls in the spacious building mocking the righteous who hold to the rod, Banda depicts a happy band gathered to hear a small, white-clad version of the Savior speaking to people who have collected in a church-like structure. These are the ones who choose Christ. They are a motley lot in all sorts of costumes with many kinds of facial features, but they all seem at ease with one another. We see only one wall of the church with large entry ways, no windows, and no doors. The building is completely open. Anyone can walk in and listen. The wall is made of colorful orange stones, reminiscent of the objects in the replication pictures. There is no judgment here; only welcome and camaraderie.
Alyce Bailey, “The Others”
It is unlikely that any of these artists would call themselves theologians, but their art reminds us that we all have to be theologians of a kind. We have to deal with the perplexities that the scriptures thrust upon. Art makes us think about problems that we might otherwise slide over.
What are we to make of the three sheep faces in Alyce Bailey’s The Others? Bailey’s is the most puzzling painting in the show. Alhough dignified, the sheep also appear slightly comical. They seem both baffled and wise. Are we ready to accept them and they us, considering that we likely look a little strange to them too?
Megan Knobloch Geilman, “Pietá”
I wonder also about Megan Knobloch Geilmann’s Pietá with a mature woman holding a large sheep on her lap. She looks up perplexed and beseeching. How am I supposed to manage this creature, she seems to say. Perhaps the problems of salvation are too large for us, and we inevitably appear awkward and overmatched.
Over 800 artists submitted for this show of 148 selections. The numbers in themselves are inspiring—so many skilled people willing to puzzle through a scripture and turn their reflections into art. They are adventurous too. Their work goes beyond the art which we ordinarily see in our meetinghouses which is largely illustrative. These artists resort to abstraction and symbols to tell their stories. The viewer has to investigate and ponder, not a bad outcome for a visit to an art exhibition. (All Are Alike Unto God, the 12th International Art Competition at the Church History Museum continues through April 1, 2023.)