'Faith, Culture, Calling' Combine at New Westmont Art Exhibit

Three unique artists with very diverse backgrounds will be under one roof at Westmont’s Reynolds Gallery. “Faith, Culture, Calling: The Irvine Guest Artist Show” will be at the gallery, Thursday, Jan. 19, through March. 10.

Artists Makoto Fujimura, Lara Scott and Elmer Yazzie will introduce their creations at an opening reception, Thursday, Jan. 19, 4-7 p.m. It will feature a collaborative live music-video performance by JJ Hamon and Lara Scott at 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

All the artists came to Westmont during the fall 2004 semester. They worked in the studio, visited art classes and spoke about the intersections between faith, cultural identities and artistic calling.

“Our students have a calling to be artists, a Christian vocation and various cultural identities,” says Lisa DeBoer, art professor. “Bringing in these artists, who’ve had to wrestle with and self-consciously identify how they want to be seen, helps the students understand the relationship with their own cultures.

Fujimura is an award-winning Japanese-American painter who works with the ancient Japanese Nihonga technique to create richly textured works. He graduated from Bucknell University and received his master’s degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He founded the International Arts Movement in 1990 and was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2003.

Scott, an African-American artist born in Scotland, uses the medium of video to explore questions of identity and community. She graduated from Yale University and earned her master’s at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an assistant professor of art at Greenville College in Illinois.

Yazzie, a Native American painter, works with traditional Navajo imagery to address stories and themes of Christian faith. He graduated from Calvin College and has been a teacher at Rebhoboth Christian School in New Mexico for more than two decades.

The Irvine Foundation awarded a grant to Westmont to facilitate the three guest artists. “The foundation made it possible for us to bring artists with diverse ideas from diverse cultures and callings and showcase them in a faith-based community,” says Tony Askew, art professor and gallery director.

The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For directions, please visit www.westmont.edu or call the gallery office (805) 565-6162.