O R D I N A R YS A I N T S
Facing ourselves, each other, and the Beloved

First Presbyterian Church 506 Park Street, Charlottesville
Artist talk at 5:30pm

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” - C.S. Lewis

The human face is a revelation of the person - and sometimes a mask. The faces of those we love and know are familiar to us. Too familiar. We can come to believe we know all there is to know about ourselves and our close friends and family. But do we? Painter Bruce Herman asks this question in paint—and pursues the possibility that the real presence of Christ can be glimpsed in the faces of those “ordinary saints” we live and work and play with. The paintings of Bruce Herman approach the idea that the face is a site of meeting and a scene of a disappearing act—a place of masking and a space of revelation.

Bruce Herman is a renowned painter and educator. His art is featured in the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art in Rome, the Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts, the Armand Hammer Museum, UCLA, and in collections worldwide.

www.bruceherman.com