Art Hounds: The Black Woman’s Guide to Creating God

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. 

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here. 

Divine narratives in theater

Suzy Messerole, co-artistic director of Exposed Brick Theatre, is raving about the play “A Walless Church: The Black Woman’s Guide to Creating God.”

The original play was written by AriDy Nox and developed at the Playwright Center, and it includes music by Queen Drea. The play runs through Oct. 13 at the Pillsbury House +Theatre. 

Suzy says: It is a beautiful combination of ritual and movement and storytelling. It is about three godlings that come back to Earth, and they are exploring how Black women experience divinity, so they are here searching for the divine. There is an incredible ritual that happens, really gorgeous movement, and there’s also three concrete storylines that you can really latch onto.

There’s all kinds of ways that this society tells Black women, explicitly and not explicitly, that they don’t deserve divinity, and this is a reclamation of the kind of faith and joy and beauty that Black women need and deserve and should have. 

The three actors drop in and out of multiple different characters, from a mom to a grandma to an auntie to a teenager and back to a godling. And the great thing about seeing a show at Pillsbury House + Theatre is that it’s an intimate setting, so you’re getting up close and personal with these powerhouse actors.

— Suzy Messerole 

Landscapes alive with light

Art lover Bill Adams of Erhard appreciates the arts scene around Fergus Falls. He wants people to know about a current show at the Kaddatz: “Scott Gunvaldson: Paintings, Drawings, Graphic Art,” which runs through Oct. 19. 

Bill says: Scott is a former student of [the late] Charles Beck, and like Charlie, he really captures the essence of west central Minnesota in his landscapes. Scott uses light in just an extraordinary way to bring out the heart and essence of the landscape. Scott is also just an extraordinary portrait painter.

He has several portraits in this show that I think are just amazing. When you stare at those portraits, the people really come alive. And again, he uses light in just an extraordinary way to bring life to those portraits.

— Bill Adams 

Rising from Superior

Artist and educator Marjorie Fedyszyn of Minneapolis recommends Annie Hejny’s multidisciplinary solo show about humanity's impact on Lake Superior. “Imminent Change/Rising Potential” runs through Oct. 26 at Kohlman & Reeb Gallery in the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis. 

Supported by the Kolhman & Reeb Project Space Grant, Hejny spent 24 days circumnavigating Lake Superior in 2023, during which time she took water samples that she incorporated into paints and gathered images and video. 

Marjorie describes the show: In the gallery, you will see large-scale acrylic paintings based on Superior’s vast shoreline, rusted steel wall sculptures in response to the years of taconite tailings running off into the lake, intimate watercolor works in a mesmerizing, layered video projection of water, highlighting the entanglement of personal, political and social aspects of our magnificent Lake Superior.

Humans have altered this highly revered and significant waterscape, and inevitably, more changes lay ahead as shoreline development, invasive species mining threats and water temperatures continue to increase. Annie’s care and interest in the stewardship of the environment inspired her solo journey and informed these new artworks, aligning her firsthand experience with imaginative experimentation, she reckons with the past and finds hope in the possibilities ahead.

This body of work is so surprisingly different from her former work that it feels like it’s a launching point for whatever’s coming next in her career.

— Marjorie Fedyszyn