Events
Events This Year
Past Events
Ah Rising! | Fall Art Exhibit | September 19-November 14, 2019
Gallery Hours: Monday: 11:30AM-1PM | Tuesday: 10AM-12:30PM | Wednesday: 1-3PM | Thursday: 10AM-12:30PM
My name is Erie Chapman. I am a Baptist minister, a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, a lawyer, healthcare executive—and, an artist. In each of my career roles, art has traveled along, sometimes in the background, sometimes in the fore. I am now in a season where art is in the foreground and my experiences of faith and religious scholarship are bound up in it. The exhibit you will be seeing, “Ah Rising” is very much a work in progress. It should be viewed as something “not yet there” but, hopefully, on its way. As is sometimes the case with artists, the first move—the creation of the artwork—allows for a secondary effect, an understanding of what is, below the surface, inspiring the artist’s creativity. In my case with this exhibit, the creative spark comes from the personal need to reimagine God, especially God’s messianic persona. Who is the new messiah that seems to me to waiting in the wings, ready to bring the fresh wind of divine presence to humankind? In the case of this exhibit that divine, messianic “person” is female. Her name is Ah.
Other Artistic Endeavors
I have been a full time photo-artist, film maker, composer and poet for more than ten years meaning that I integrate all four of these disciplines in my work (one of my books of poetry and photography is Woman as Beauty. Over the past ten years I have created and produced two, award-winning feature films and three short films,) The first of these is called Who Loves Judas (also performed as a play). It addresses the hypocrisy of betrayal in contemporary America. The second is "Alex Dreaming" in which Minton Sparks co-starred.
Exhibit Dedication
I was running Baptist Hospital full time while going to Divinity School full time. So when I showed up in a coat and tie no one sat near me. After a class on the first day a black woman who had been in the same class said to me, "So, are you one of those anal retentive white guys with your coat & tie?" Michelle Jackson and I became great friends and continued to be after she married her partner, Lillian. A few weeks after graduation Michelle died suddenly. She was 38. I set up a Scholarship Fund in her honor at the Divinity School (it still exists) and I am dedicating this exhibit to Michelle, a gay black woman who looked like my opposite but was, instead, my sister.
Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture and the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies present: Alicia Henry: Patterns
Opening Reception: January 31 – March 14, 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019, 4:00 – 7:00 pm, Vanderbilt Divinity School, Room 120
Gallery Talk with Alicia Henry, Artist: Monday, February 11, 2019, 12:00 noon
Vanderbilt Divinity School, Room 120
Spiritual Meditation with Phillis Sheppard, Ph.D.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019, 12:00 noon, Vanderbilt Divinity School, Room 120
Commemorating Black History Month, an exhibit of mixed-media works by artist and Fisk University professor Alicia Henry. "Patterns" will be on display in room G-20, ground floor of the Divinity School beginning with a reception on Thursday, January 31st from 4-7 PM. The exhibit will remain at the Divinity School through March 14, 2019.
The artist's statement
A common recurring image in my work is the human figure-the figure in isolation and the figure interacting with others. My work often explores these ideas through the theme of the paper doll and paper cutouts. I am exploring the social relationship these images have had in shaping the stereotypical and idealized figures in the media by depicting generalized figures representing what I hope is a broader vision of society (racial, gender, economic, and social levels), my goal is to make visible that which still often goes unseen.
G raph of Desire: A retrospective exhibition of paintings by Mira Gerard
September 27-November 12, 2018
Gallery Hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday from 12:15 to 2:15PM
Opening Reception: September 27, 4-7PM
Vanderbilt Divinity School G-20 (Arts Room)
Artist's Statement
I make paintings of the figure as a way to understand desire, which functions in my work in part as a fantasy about being both subject and maker. For several years when I was growing up, my family lived in a small intentional community in rural New Hampshire with no TVs and with limited access to experiences of mainstream American culture in the 70's. I became fascinated with fairies and fairy tales, along with the meadows, stone walls and woods around me. During that time, I was a frequent subject of my father's paintings- usually depicted playing in fields of flowers in sun-drenched afternoon landscapes.
Ten years ago I quite literally stumbled into Lacanian psychoanalysis. It's a practice of speaking freely and in a very nonlinear way, which parallels studio processes of sorting through fragments, pieces of images and ideas, to make something new that remembers (re-members). I create staged photographs and videos and supplement those with screenshots, art historical references, and collage. I am specifically interested in figures or elements in landscapes and spaces, and in the implication of a kind of storyboard, a before-to-after. Because the process of painting itself feels necessarily perfomative and vulnerable, I try to communicate this through both content and approach. I have embraced traditional, old master forms of construction, with a method in place for the breakdown of those processes to occur, so that the paintings themselves are like landscapes and bodies- a physical manifestation of interruptions, scars, layers, and time.
Mira Gerard’s creative practice spans painting, performance, and video. She received her BFA from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and her MFA from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Her work has been exhibited at a wide range of venues. Her work was selected for New American Paintings #118 (Southeast Edition, 2015) and has been published in journals including Poets & Artists, The Cortland Review, and Manifest Painting International. She has presented papers and performance & video works on the intersection of art and psychoanalysis at conferences including the International Zizek Studies Conference, LACK, Psychology and the Other, and the Southeastern College Art Conference. She has been awarded fellowships for residencies at Ox-Bow School of Art, Cill Rialaig Project, The Hambidge Center, The Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Mira Gerard is Chair and Professor in the Department of Art & Design at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee where she has lived since 2001.
Desire: An Evening of Musical Reflection
Thursday, April 5, 2018 | 6:00 p.m.
Vanderbilt Divinity School G-20 (Arts Room)
While pursuing his Master of Divinity degree, Luther Young has undertaken research at the intersection of race, sexuality, and theology. An extension of the M.Div. Senior Project entitled "Pimps and Sissies: Gay Men, the Black Church, and Liberation Theology," Desire uses song and narration to illustrate how gay black men of faith maintain their relationship with God, either within or without the Black Church. Luther along with members of the community will perform musical selections to guide reflections about the experiences of gay black men in religious contexts. Desire will be held Thursday, April 5th in the Divinity School Arts Room at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Eikon: A Triple Encounter
Gallery Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 12 - 2 PM (Room G-20)

Lecture: The Canopy and the Byzantine Church
April 14, 2018 • 3:00 p.m. Divinity School Room G-23
Associate Professor, Iowa State University

In My Lifetime: An African American Perspective
February 1 - 28, 2018
In observation of Black History Month, Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture is pleased to partner with the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies to present an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media works from Nashville artist Omari Booker. Gallery hours and artist's statement to be announced shortly.
March 16 - April 28, 2017
Triptych
Triptych offers an invitation to encounter narratives of identity, as expressed by six artists. The show will feature works by: Chip Boles, Louisa Glenn, Terry Lynn, Ndume Olatushani, Steve Stone Jr., Brian Wooden.
Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 16 (3-7pm), Vanderbilt Divinity School, G-20, ground floor
Weekly Gallery Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from Noon to 2PM - Room G-20 (ground floor Divinity)
and by appointment (religionandarts@vanderbilt.edu)
Please note that the gallery will be closed Friday, April 14th in observance of Good Friday.
February 2 - February 24, 2017
Invictus: 20 works Celebrating African Americans' Pursuit of Freedom and Will to Survive
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 2, 2017; 3-7PM - Room G-20 (ground floor Divinity)
Closing Reception: February 22, 2017; Noon - 2PM - Black Cultural Center (Vanderbilt campus)
Invictus: A Meditative Reflection, February 24, 2017; 5-7 PM - Room G-20 (ground floor Divinity) - with Phillis Sheppard, Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture & Calvin Settles, Jazz Pianist
Weekly Gallery Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from Noon to 2PM - Room G-20 (ground floor Divinity)
and by appointment (religionandarts@vanderbilt.edu)