Beitler, “Celestial Strip”

In the 21st century, it’s not necessary to be a feminist in order to see how the deck is conventionally stacked against women. While some of these inequities are right up to date—pregnancy, contraception, autonomous healthcare among them—others date all the way back to the beginning of Time. Scholars now mostly agree that the Old Testament consists of many anecdotes stitched together. In one, the universe is created in six days. Turn the page, and instead, Adam and Eve are created in the Garden, a dramatic set piece that seems to have been created in order to fix the blame for all the ills that beset them, and all humanity, entirely on Eve.

Certain Women conceived Brave Like Eve as an opportunity for about one hundred Latter-day Saint women artists to share their thoughts and feelings, in the form of visual art, about the use Christian cultures have made of Eve over the millennia. They present a great many alternate, overdue, and welcome explanations for Eve’s alleged part in the origin story. The collection will be together at BDAC until the last days of March, annotated with lectures, performances and poetry readings. The works fill the gallery with images that often strike the eye boldly, transcending the often moderate call on the viewer’s eye and conveying just how vitally important the subject is for the artists.

Mya Cluff, “Eve Mourning Abel”

“Cain and Abel” is one of the stories loosely connected to Eve’s. In spite of its being one of the most oft-told of Biblical tales, its relation to what happened before remains a mystery, taken for granted. Not by Mya Cluff, though, whose “Eve Mourning Abel” captures the pathos of any parent who has lost a beloved child, whether forever or even if for a few hours. The fragmentary scene is roughly drawn in pencil, the most immediate connection between an artist’s impulse and the image she eventually creates, so giving it great power.

On the opposite extreme of scale, Pamela Beach’s 29-square-foot canvas, “Sorry/Sorrow,” argues Eve foresaw the effect her thoughtful—however often described as mindless—choice, would have on her descendants. Beach does this by presenting what appears to be an as-yet-unfinished painting. Details like her children, shown in an early stage of rendering, and the transparency of the foreground, remind us that the primary event occupies only a moment in time, but will have additional consequences.

Pamela Beach, “Sorry/Sorrow”

Another painting among those that remind us that Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and knowledge was what she received in exchange, Lena Phillips’s “Paper Crown” reminds us that it is a physical image, rather than a spiritual conduit to the absolute. Despite its scratched and cracked surface, and what that may well say about the indifference of the adult she became to her childhood photos, the work still conveys how the subject remains precious to her mother, who valued its power to remind her of lost innocence and anticipation.

It comes as no surprise that the artists’ statements, which form a substantial part of Brave Like Eve, tend to run longer than those accompanying other shows. Elizabeth Thayer’s comments on “Possibilities,” a kitchen portrait of a mother and three children, may help viewers to observe its ascending levels of self-presentation. The infant, as might be expected, registers indifference to being posed. Her slightly older brother calls attention to her with a sibling’s pride and desire to contribute appropriate to his age. His big sister grooms her mother’s hair attentively, and perhaps a bit possessively, while Mom’s hurried state of preparation echoes the harmless chaos surrounding her. Among the statements, many display specific elements of faith, while the art they accompany expresses more preverbal truths.

The choice to begin Eve’s story in a garden is underscored by the many works that feature close observation of Nature. On a planet tortured by engines of war and other machines, Eve’s choice to partake of the fruit of a tree seems like the option of a lesser evil. Brekke Sjoblom’s “Brave Choices” and Shelly Coleman’s “Remnants of Choice” both achieve remarkable symbiosis with the optics of ripples through water. Other visions, far too many to mention them all here, include butterflies, flowers, and of course, trees. Two equally captivating, but diametrically opposed visions demonstrate the invaluable ability of women not to dominate, but rather to collaborate. In “Eve’s Portrait,” Sabrina Squires places Eve in a densely-woven vision of Creation, while in “Celestial Strip,” Kirsten Holt Beitler places a neon tree, serpent, and apple between real palm trees on a rain-slick and reflective, alternative version of a gambler’s paradise. Does no one remember thinking God took a chance on us, or that He still does with every free soul He creates?

Brave Like Eve also includes a remarkable number of sculptural responses. Elizabeth Crowe’s china tableware suggests that in a perfect world, where nothing ever dies, there would be scarce need for human creativity. “Eve’s Joy” posits that far from an unmitigated disaster, Eve’s choice gave us the gift of mortality. Chelsy Walker’s “What She Carried Out of Eden” makes a similar observation through a symbolic handbag. Payden Mouritsen’s “Ripe” makes the simplest, most powerful statement of the premise: without the cycle of active life Eve supposedly set in motion, wouldn’t life itself have remained in a static state we can only imagine?

Textiles, unconventional materials, and folk art traditions also turn out to be quick to assume symbolic and philosophical significance. Careful reading of both the images and accompanying text reveals a paradox; that Eve has always fared better in Latter-day thinking than in the wider world, even as the modern Church struggles with what she means today. In the gallery, which was crowded during the opening and continues to host women in actively engaged groups as the exhibition carries on, it seems that Certain Women have found a contemporary issue and an audience they’ve engaged in a response of large measure and personal significance. It’s not all that unusual for visitors to a gallery to act like they’re in church, but here they’re also talking, sharing, and even pointing things out to each other. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s celebrated comment from 1976 comes to mind: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” The same might be said for the making and sharing of substantial art.

Shelly Coleman, “Remnants of Choice”

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.