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“Heads, Faces and Spiritual Encounter: The Bowden Collection” opens the Abraham Art Gallery’s 2024-2025 season.
This national traveling art exhibit, which is on display through Nov. 15, is made available, in part, through CIVA — Christians in the Visual Arts. Abraham Art Gallery is located on the atrium level of the Mabee Learning Resources Center on Wayland Baptist University’s Plainview campus. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday.
“Heads Faces and Spiritual Encounter” aims to examine the power of identity through the human face and the ways faces not only define who we are and how we interact with the physical world, but also how we understand and relate to one another as spiritual beings. The diversity of facial expressions in the exhibit ranges from the realistic and striking, to impressionistic, to emotive and abstract, emphasizing that the human face disguises as much as it reveals.
The art of portraiture “is both an assertion of individuality and a means of memorial,” writes Edward Knippers, a contributor and featured artist of the exhibit. “To behold a face is always a spiritual encounter,” writes Knippers, and no face exemplifies more the great depth of human suffering and the design of divinity than the visage and person of Jesus Christ, who inspired and is portrayed throughout the collection. Colossians 1:15 states that Christ “is the visible image of the invisible God,” and as humans, we long to connect, to be seen, and to know the Creator. Through artistic expression and seeking to capture something true and identifiable, “the face and the head that holds it speak of the totality of the spiritual mystery of our world.”
Famed artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Otto Dix and Marc Chagall are represented in the exhibit, as well as Sandra Bowden, Bernard Buffet, Catherine Prescott, Bruce Herman, Werner Drewes, Julio Vaquero i Serraima, and other contemporary artists. The works play with the language of texture, lines, composition and rich dark tones to evoke connection as the viewer gazes into faces, poignant and familiar.
Of the 45 artworks, many were created using printmaking methods such as lithograph, intaglio, woodcut and etching; other media include ink, mixed media, watercolor and oil painting. There are also six sculptures and cast bronze heads by anonymous artists from Ife, Nigeria and the Dan Peoples.
The Bowden Collection offers a thoughtful study of the beauty, mystery, and Imago Dei (Image of God) of the human face.
For more information or to schedule a tour, please call 806-291-3710.
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