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Inori - The Prayer
Oil on
canvas
Statement:
I think of life as a duality, the need for community is vital
but perhaps the greater need is for the private and interior
life, including prayer. I don't see how anyone can navigate
this existence, with or without religion, without prayer. I
never considered prayer to be formal but I have always
considered it to be private, part of myself I do not share. It
is just that way. The two women in this painting reflect this
duality, one looks out at us, the greater community and the
other turns inward, in prayer and in conversation with
eternity, with God.
Bio:
Contemporary American artist Janet McKenzie has committed her
life and art to celebrating women's lives and gifts. Best
known for her "Jesus of the People," the controversial winner
of National Catholic Reporter's Jesus 2000 international
competition, McKenzie's work boldly confronts and confounds
stereotypical thinking with luminous and haunting imagery. Her
art was featured in book form in Holiness and the Feminine
Spirit — The Art of Janet McKenzie and The Way of the Cross —
The Path to New Life (written by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB),
published by Orbis Books. Her art has been exhibited at the
Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee and the Loyola University
Museum of Art in Chicago, among other venues throughout the
country. Janet McKenzie was the 2013 William Belden Noble
Lecturer at the Memorial Church, Harvard University. |
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