Cloister

Cloister

​Solo Exhibition 
Bennett Vineyards on Fifth
Eugene, Oregon 
November 18, 2021 - December 10, 2021

First Friday Art Walk
Friday, December 3, 2021
​5:30 pm - 7:30 pm 

This newest body of work, Cloister, focuses on community. Each piece searches for the sanctuary of being connected to each other and our obligation to one another. 

My work began with the concepts of how community brings  protection to the individual. I wanted to process what it meant to be part of a community. For my research,  I once again returned to C. S. Lewis’, A Grief Observed, and focused on his illustration, “they appear as two circles...two circles that touched.” 

The protection of the community reminded me of the Cloister. I have been to Cloisters, the atmosphere of sanctuary fills every corner. But with this sanctuary there is an obligation to the whole. I understand why people want to live cloistered away. In that isolation there is safety and commonality. The isolation of the pandemic has brought about the opposite of the Cloister. Instead of  the protection for the community or the individual, our collective trauma has led into a commonality of divisiveness. 

Cloister was created during the pandemic. I noticed a divide in this country and especially in the Body of Christ. I saw the Church become us versus them. Christ instructed us to love others as ourselves. But, instead of the open arms of the community, I saw a fist shaking in anger.

This work was not created to be divisive. This work was created for me to process my own concepts of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. The circle represents many concepts from completeness, to wholeness, to Holiness. The circles in Cloister represent the individual, floating about, connecting with others. There is searching in each circle. They are searching for love and belonging. The white that surrounds the cloistered circles covers the noise of the outside influences. Under the veil of white paint, shapes once existed but were covered, representing isolating self from difference. The white protects, yet isolates the group. The cloister should be the embrace of loving arms, not turned backs. 

The series of paintings was influenced by the tapestries in The Met Cloisters in New York City, the Russian Icons of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon and the many circular works of Sonia Delauney. 

M. V. Moran earned her MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Moran has a BFA in Painting from the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. After several years of working at the UO in Student Services, she resigned from her position and began her dream of becoming a professional artist. She exhibits extensively throughout the Pacific Northwest. Moran has taught at Bushnell University in Eugene, Oregon and is currently a Lane Arts Council Artist-in-Residence.

M. V. Moran

Image:
Cluster
acrylic on canvas
36"x48"
$829