Light In The Darkness
by Constance Pierce

Medium: Graphite and wash
Date / Size: 2002 / 18" by 24"

Artist Statement: I am compelled by Biblical narrative in a non-traditional mode. I often work with themes of pilgrimage, lamentation, absolution, and transcendence. Such archetypal themes flesh out parable and reveal to me the ancient stories, once again reborn, in our world of dissonance and division. These stories, in all of their mythic and consuming drama, are ever played out in our most inward journeys. Through the work of my hands I am petitioning an otherness. A dialogue begins. The creative act becomes an "opus cordis," a work of the heart.

Biographical Statement: Constance Pierce is an associate professor at St. Bonaventure University (NY). She received her MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting of the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore. Her sketchbooks were featured in two exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (DC), and her monotypes and sketchbooks are in the permanent collection of this museum, as well as the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian (DC), Georgetown University Special Collections (DC), International Marion Research Institute (OH), and Yale Center for British Art sketchbook archives (CT) among others. She is a painter, printmaker, educator, curator, and a mother.