Trinity Western University’s School of the Arts, Media + Culture is proud to present Tangles and Glory / Self Interpreting Life, a two-part solo exhibition by Associate Professor Doris Auxier, on exhibit in the President’s Gallery from October 9 to November 1, 2013. An opening reception with a talk by the artist will take place on Wednesday, October 9 from 4-6 p.m. in the gallery, on the second floor of TWU’s Reimer Student Centre.
Taken from two separate series, Auxier’s works explore God’s influence and conversational presence in human life. In Self Interpreting Life, Auxier started with the 1899 four-volume set of the Self Interpreting Bible. “I was inspired by the suggestive title,” Auxier says, “and turned the bibles into a visual commentary on the increasing rejection of scripture as a text of reliable truth or as reflecting God’s incarnational and redemptive actions.”
Through the process of blacking out everything that isn’t a verb, Auxier leaves behind nothing but activity—all narrative that helps to establish meaning is lost. “As I worked with the text in this way, it became a record of generation after generation of activity without story or meaning,” explains Auxier of her process. “Reflecting on what existence would be like without God, I was left with a gutted text reflecting a long death march of each generation.”
The paintings of Tangles and Glory are a visual retelling of the staggering message of 2 Corinthians chapter 12—that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness, and weakness can be a resting place of God’s glory. Auxier’s paintings explore the beauty found in discarded nature or bits of yarn: “These objects evoke metaphors of human weakness being used for extraordinary displays of God’s glory,” says Auxier. “The layers, as they become obscured, changed, or sanded off, mirror the way God’s word becomes living in every breath of a life lived on earth.
Doris Auxier is an Associate Professor at TWU’s School of the Arts, Media + Culture and a working artist who has practiced throughout North America. She is currently part of an artist-run collective gallery in Fort Langley where she now resides. Much of her work has focused on fragile and protected environments such as the Langley Bog. Her work has been shown in several CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts) exhibits and previously in the President’s Gallery; most recently in 2012 with her installation piece Mausoleum: Red List Lament, a work about red list plants found in the Garry Oak ecosystem of British Columbia.
For more details about the Tangles and Glory / Self Interpreting Life exhibition, or other events at TWU’s School of the Arts, Media + Culture, visit www.twu.ca/samc. For sponsorship opportunities, email Diana.Squires@twu.ca.