Union Seminary to host “Icons Reimagined” exhibit

Union Presbyterian Seminary will host a free public exhibit, titled “Icons Reimagined,” beginning November 1, 2018, at William Smith Morton Library, 3406 Chamberlayne Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23227.

The exhibit will feature oil paintings and collage/mixed media works by local artist Kay Vass Darling along with books from Morton Library’s collection pertaining to icons, worship, and iconography. The exhibit will be in place through mid-January 2019 and there will be a free gallery talk by the artist at 3 p.m. on November 12.

“I have been creating and developing art based on icons since 2000. Visual influences range from the sacred art of Ethiopia, traditional religious images and Byzantine icons, decorative needlework, the Pattern and Decoration movement, and vernacular art,” said Darling. “I was interested in Byzantine Icons but was not interested in repeating that tradition as such. Seeing Ethiopian icons helped me to realize that there were different visual traditions in Christianity, that I was not tied to what I grew up with.”

A Virginia native who currently lives in Richmond, Darling has exhibited art at the Massey Cancer Center, Richmond Public Library’s Dooley Hall, and The Gallery at Convergence in Alexandria, Virginia. The Centre Gallery East at ArtWorks, the Petersburg Regional Art Center, and the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart have also exhibited her work, which is in many private collections.

She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Greensboro College, a Master of Theological Studies in Religion and the Arts from Wesley Theological Seminary, and a Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has taught both art and religion in a variety of venues and was, until recently, the theological librarian at Virginia Union University’s Wilder Library, serving the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology.