Former Faculty Member Bruce Herman Speaks at Boston College on Feb. 17

February 8, 2016

Montserrat College of Art’s former faculty and artist Bruce Herman will be speaking at Boston College on “Making and Breaking: Art, Hospitality and Eucharist” on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 5:30 pm in Devlin 101 on the Boston College campus.

Bruce Herman is a painter and educator living and working in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Herman holds the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts at Gordon College where he has taught and curated exhibitions since 1984. He completed both undergraduate and graduate fine arts degrees at Boston University College of Fine Arts.

“The process of “breaking” is at least as important as making, according to the artist and educator, Bruce Herman. Central to his artistic process is a willingness to risk loss of the image in pursuit of the most fitting and poignant expression. The Christian sacrament of the Eucharist is pivotal to Herman’s own self-understanding as an artist. “This is My body, broken for you,” spoken by Christ before his betrayal and execution is a watchword: there is a costliness to the creative process that echoes this most costly of human deeds — laying down one’s life for one’s friends. Artists routinely expose their heart, their inmost self to scrutiny by others in hopes that visual meaning might be shared. This vulnerability is at the heart of the artistic act, and that necessarily involves a personal loss and breaking even as something new comes into being. The artist, like the one who invites the other into her dwelling place in an act of hospitality, welcomes the viewer to be judge and jury, and this central risk is where the meaning begins. Without this risk there is no meaning. Join Herman as he delivers a slide talk on his personal studio process and theological framework.”