Kurelek Art Show: At Home in the World
An Exhibition of the work of William Kurelek
At Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF)
920 Cherry Street SE
Grand Rapids MI
November 2007 to May 2008
Gallery hours: Monday ~ Friday 11am to 5pm; Saturday 12pm to 4pm
Download Kurelek Art Show Flyer
One could not imagine a more synergistic pairing between a Christian organization devoted to reconstruct beauty as well as justice in blighted urban neighborhoods and a Christian artist with a powerful vision of God’s presence and grace among those whom the world has disenfranchised and denied.
As ICCF’s families, supporters, and staff enjoy this opportunity to become familiar with Kurelek’s work, the powerful visual reflection provided by these paintings cannot but deepen our collective commitment to renewing God’s world. Kurelek’s own life and experiences bear witness to the importance that beauty retains even for those of us who struggle with life’s material hardships, even in the context of a fallen world that often lets even beautiful works go to waste and decay. “What’s the use of painting beauty only, if this beauty will soon be destroyed?” asked Kurelek in his autobiography. He ultimately answers that it is the job of artists to “quicken our sense of the urgency of the human predicament before it is too late.”
Born in 1927 on a farm northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, to Ukrainian immigrants, William Kurelek witnessed first hand the devastation and misery wrought upon rural and urban communities by the Great Depression. The oldest of seven children, he worked in a number of lumber camps across Canada. His eventual decision to study art was hard won against the adamant opposition of his father, who expected William to stick to the practical labor of farming. After studying in Winnipeg and Toronto, Kurelek traveled to Mexico and eventually England, where he suffered an emotional and spiritual crisis and was hospitalized for depression. As he battled his illness, Kurelek found in painting a source of self-discovery and healing, and eventually an avenue to bear witness to his regained Christian faith. A Roman Catholic, Kurelek expressed his devotion in a series of paintings focusing on the Passion of Christ According to Saint Matthew, resulting in a series of 160 works that are currently exhibited at the Niagara Falls Art Gallery and Museum.
Upon returning to Toronto in the late 1950s, Kurelek immersed himself in its urban environment, and his works from this period, some of which are included in the ICCF exhibit, explore the manifestations of God’s grace in the city, and the redeeming encounter between the often harsh realities of urban life and God’s call to justice. Racial intolerance, economic disparities and hunger are subjects which drew his creative attention regularly. In the current exhibition here at ICCF his pieces My Good Christian Friends, Toronto Toronto, Lord, When Did We See You Hungry? And It’s Hard for Us to Realize are particularly poignant expressions of his anguish about these social conditions.
As Kurelek notes at the conclusion of his autobiography, we might not understand the entire vision of God’s weaving together of the world, because we “see only the underside and cannot grasp the whole pattern of the present human predicament.” We can, however, share Kurelek’s certainty: “What I am sure of, however, is that I am not really alone anymore in the rest of my journey through this tragic, puzzling, yet wonderful world. There is Someone with me. And He has asked me to get up because there is work to be done.”
It is this profound vision of God’s redemptive work in the multifarious realms of human dwelling—from struggling farms to affluent suburban households to disenfranchised shantytowns—that makes Kurelek’s work such an ideal complement for and expression of ICCF’s commitment to honor God not only in justice but also in beauty. ICCF has asked and is trying hard to answer important questions about the planning of our communities, the financing of home purchases, and the design integrity of the housing of our low and moderate income neighbors. The generous loan of these superb artworks by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson is a most fitting celebration of God’s generous grace toward ICCF, the families it serves, and the community where it dwells.
(notes by Simona Goi, ICCF Board Member)
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