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The Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Indiana is proud to announce the opening of a new exhibit, “Faces of Faith: the Search for the Divine,” Art Quilts by Penny Sisto. The exhibit will be open May 22 through July 11, 2009 and is the inaugural show for the Carnegie Center’s newly renovated changing exhibitions galleries. In this new exhibit, Penny Sisto examines commonalities in five world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Visitors will be able to listen to podcasts of Sisto and Dr. Roy Fuller, Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Southeast, speaking about the artworks in this exhibit. The podcasts will be available at the Center or for download at www.carnegiecenter.org. “Faces of Faith: the Search for the Divine” and accompanying programs are generously supported by the Arts Council of Southern Indiana and the Carnegie Center, Inc.
There will be an opening reception for this exhibit on Friday May 22 from 6-8 pm. Visitors can enjoy light refreshments and a chance to meet Penny Sisto as they explore her quilts in the galleries. This event is sponsored by the Carnegie Center, Inc. and is free and open to the public.
Penny Sisto is an internationally recognized artist who has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. International presentations of her work include the exhibition of a grouping of Holocaust quilts at the Gatehouse of Auschwitz and a selection of her Slavery series quilts that were displayed at the Royal Armories Museum in Leeds, England in 2008. She has won numerous awards and honors for her artwork and has been the subject of two public television programs. She is known for the difficult subjects, such as AIDS, poverty and racism that she addresses in her works, as she advocates for social justice and peace.
In her artist’s statement for “Faces of Faith: the Search for the Divine,” Sisto writes, “I wanted to follow the thread of my own belief, a belief which teaches that all of us are equal in the sight of God and that each and every Faith will lead us to the same place of enlightened compassion and stillness that we call the Divine. In this quilted journey I rediscovered that we find similar stories and parables in every religion. My desire was to illustrate those paths which unite us… to show through these quilted images the whispers and inner prompting which guide us ever deeper into our individual Search for the Divine.”
There are a number of programs planned in conjunction with this exhibit, including a group discussion about religion, two gallery talks by the artist, and a bus tour of religious architecture. Pre-registration is required for the bus tour only, and participants will pay a small fee to help cover the cost of the bus. All other programs are free. Please call 812-944-7336 for more information about any of these events.
Click on the image below for a full schedule of related programs.
