Take a trip to the Hillel Center to experience its "Journey of the Seeker," a new art show of student work on the top floor of Hillel through April 27.
Curated by juniors Erin Baldinger and Neil Hirsch, "Seeker" displays both Tufts and School of Museum of Fine Arts students' religiously themed work.
Hirsch and Baldinger, both active members of Hillel, and the co-chairs of the Cultural Arts Committee, sought to find a theme which would encompass the struggles all people face with their religious beliefs.
After spending fall semester studying abroad in Rome, Baldinger said he "came back with a much greater appreciation for the visual arts, and in particular the power they had to influence and express religious ideas."
Baldinger is also interested in music and the different ways people can feel spiritual. At the April 15 opening, a variety of campus musicians played, showing the important relationship between music and visual arts.
Baldinger said that "Seeker" provides students a great opportunity to expose themselves to art, and should try to "think about the power art has in our lives."
The art will certainly speak to people of many faiths, as a variety of religions are depicted. Even those students who do not ascribe to a specific religion will appreciate the work of their peers and perhaps find meaning.
Students can also find humor, such as in Karl Frey's two Oreo cookie pieces, which poke fun at Western religion. "On the 7912th day, God created the Oreo," and "And Saw that it was Good" are precise drawings of the small chocolate cookies while dealing with a sense of history by incorporating biblical titles.
Hirsch, an art history major, enjoys the challenge of confronting his own issues with spirituality amidst the work of the submitted artists. In addition, Hirsch and Baldinger had to work with the challenge of creating a working dialogue between the sundry spiritual images.
Hirsch proudly said that "each artist contributes to this exploration by sharing with the viewers the experiences of their explorations in faith."
These diverse images include Kyle McGillicuddy-Penna's watercolor "In the Garden" which reflects on the Garden of Eden, yet shifts the representation, making it more modern.
One interesting piece in the show, which highlights the diversity of the religious representation, is Brahma Muhurta Das' "Svasti Vacanam." In this color-saturated photograph, we see a middle-aged man sitting on the floor amidst a carpet of confetti.
The photograph plays with hues of orange. The man being photographed wears a deep orange cloth draped around him as if it were a holy dress.
Accompanying the pieces in the show, Baldinger and Hirsch compiled small texts written by the artists. Das included quotes from traditional Indian texts including a prayer for well being to go along with "Svasti Vacanam."
Christine King's trilogy focuses on Western culture and the temptation of man, tracing it from the Garden of Eden to modern day temptation. In "Eve in the Garden," the best piece in this series, a lone hand reaches out and holds a deep red apple.
"Eve in the Kitchen," painted in what King calls "1950s style," shows an apple pie. The painting, with its use of slightly kitschy colors, harkens back to an era when home-baked apple pies were a staple.
The final piece in the series, "Apple Pie" is a silkscreen, representing the most current technological invention in King's trilogy. It shows a copy of a Mrs. Smith's apple pie, showing how modern-day temptation leads us not to an apple, as in the first piece, not even to a home-baked pie, but to a frozen, pre-prepared, bought-from-the-grocery-store pie.
Michelle Arnold's delicate hand-made book "Shadows" is a beautiful representation of her personal religious path. Arnold's small pages are thoughtfully rendered and one should surely take the time to inspect this small, yet striking composition. Along with the book, Arnold also wrote a poignant poem describing her feelings of awe towards God mixing in modern and biblical references.
