Art Hag

The Zach Feuer Gallery currently has on view works by Sister Mary Corita (Kent) (1918-1986), a nun, art teacher, activist, and Pop artist. Sister Corita combined vivid colors, graphics and text to create bold, statement-making serigraphs and watercolors that are unexpectedly cool yet powerful.

According to the exhibit's press release, "Drawn to the power of the word, Sister Corita incorporated fragments of text, slogans and signs taken from billboards, street signs, advertising jingles, pop songs, poems, newspapers and magazines into her work. She sampled quotes by Martin Luther King Jr., Rainer Maria Rilke, Phillip Roth and the Psalms. Sister Corita also appropriated images from magazine and newspaper covers of the Viet Cong, the Pope and the Berrigan Brothers burning draft cards as well as the Wonder Bread logo... She cropped, skewed, and collaged phrases from disparate sources to enhance the power of the quote and to create unique revolutionary, spiritual and social statements."

During her years as an art teacher at the Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, Sister Corita showed films, played pop music, created "large-scale collaborative projects" and invited impressive guest lecturers like iconic designer Charles Eames and futuristic architect Buckminster Fuller (this sounds like the best art class EVER!)

Sister Corita left the nunnery and moved to Boston in 1969 where she focused on her art and worked on various corporate and public projects. She created the 1985 Love postage stamp and the ~150-foot high Rainbow Swash in 1971, which fellow Mass-holes (I use the term affectionately) will recognize from the exterior of the Boston Gas storage tanks in Dorchester, right off the Southeast Expressway (the Rainbow Swash is as iconic a landmark in Boston as the neon Citgo sign).

The Zach Feuer Gallery has on view serigraphs created by Sister Corita from the early 1950's up to her passing in 1986, along with various memorabilia. On Saturday, November 7th at 3:00pm, the gallery has invited Alexandra Carrera, the Director of the Corita Art Center, to discuss Sister Corita's enduring work. Learn more at Zachfeuer.com.

moonflowers, 1969