An Arizona art exhibit featuring the iconic-style work of Benedictine Sister of Perpetual Adoration Carmela Rall, OSB opens later this month.
“Icons: The Human Face of God” opens on Nov. 22 and runs through Jan. 31, 2016, at the Church of the Apostles in Oro Valley.
The exhibit highlights the works of Sister Carmela and Laura Fisher Smith that depict Christian figures such as Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, saints and angels. Icons are created to function as aids to meditative prayer and as a means of communion with God.
The act of painting or "writing” an icon is a prayerful experience for the artist or iconographer. When venerated in prayer, the icon facilitates a relationship between the person who prays and the holy being depicted in the icon. In the process of "reading" the meaning of the image and its symbolic details, one's prayers can be directed toward God.
Sister Carmela, who moved from the Congregation’s Tucson community to the Benedictine Sisters’ motherhouse in Clyde, Missouri, last year, has loved art since she was a child. Her parents presented her with a set of watercolors for her profession, and she has kept busy since, creating beautiful cards and paintings.
She later crafted several stained glass windows for a nearby church and spearheaded the repainting of the vast stencil work in the community’s Adoration Chapel. She has been creating icons since attending a painting retreat in 1999. She discovered that painting icons perfectly combined her artistic impulses with her spirituality and her commitment to a life of prayer.
Hours for the exhibit will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays, during Sunday services, and special events. For more information, please contact curator Peggy Hazard at peghaz@aol.com. |
