“The Difficult Part: Brian Kershisnik, A Mid-Career Retrospective” is the BYU Museum of Art’s Newest Exhibit, Running Through May 3, 2025
A haloed dog drools as the infant Jesus, also haloed, reaches out to pet its nose. Equipped with an umbrella and a watering can, a woman gardens as rain pours around her. Fussy babies sit on Christ’s lap. Under a starry sky, the biblical Jacob engages in a physical wrestle with an angel; the latter seems to be winning. Whimsical and burden laden, Brian Kershisnik’s new exhibit at the Museum of Art taps into the extremes and nuances of the human experience.
Featuring more than 100 original drawings, sculptures, prints and paintings, Kershisnik’s exhibit is comprised of three parts: “Shades of Death and Woundedness,” “Holy Women” and “Young Immortals.” Visitors will find pieces they already love and cherish such as “Jesus and the Angry Babies” and “Nativity” as well as discover never-before-seen works created especially for this exhibit.
Currently based out of Utah, Kershisnik has lived and worked all over the world and graduated with a degree in fine arts from BYU and an MFA in printmaking from the University of Texas at Austin.
“I have always felt like a spectator of my own work, even as it emerged from my hands, but never more so than in viewing this assembly of my artworks going up at the museum,” Kershisnik said of the exhibition. “It has been the product of so much support, assistance, encouragement, criticism and conversations over food with so many people. Also, renewing a connection with so many earlier versions of my developing self is a bit overwhelming.”
Many years in the making, the exhibit was curated by emeritus director of the MOA Mark Magleby, Kershisnik’s friend of over 40 years. “The difficult parts of life refine and humble us. They teach and stretch us and hurt and heal us,” said Magleby. “Kershisnik helps us find beauty amidst the messiness and pain.”
In his painting, “Saint unable to proceed,” for example, a woman sits in a chair with her eyes cast downward with three figures behind her with hands on her shoulder and head, actively involved in her suffering. All four seem to be knit together in recognition of the obstacle that prevents the woman from moving forward.
In Kershisnik’s largest bronze sculpture yet, “The Difficult Part,” a man and woman find themselves in an acrobatically complex dance. “I think that the figures can represent any relationship: siblings, friends, parent-child, even one with God,” said MOA director Janalee Emmer. “Life requires a heroic kind of acrobatic excellence as we juggle and complete all the tasks set before us while loving others and God.”
Kershisnik’s art is infused with a deep sense of spirituality and the exhibit emphasizes that heavenly help is closer than we think. In “when to stop,” an angel urges a writer wrapped up in his work to stop and be quiet — what could he have been writing that warranted such direction? Kershisnik’s willingness to let certain questions remain unanswered allows viewers to make their own discoveries.
“One of the things I love about Kershisnik’s art is the way it invites me to consider things from different perspectives,” said Liz Donakey, the MOA’s educator for the exhibition. “Whether it is a story I have known since I was little or a more general idea, his work encourages me to ask questions and bring my own interpretations to them.”
Fresh perspectives of these familiar stories are introduced through works such as “The next time Lazarus died,” in which a woman mourns the man’s second death. The pair of paintings “good samaritan” and “on the road to Jericho” both depict the familiar biblical story, but the latter modernizes it with a yellow stripe on a paved road. In the poignant “Harrowing of Hell,” one of the final paintings of the exhibit, Jesus digs in His feet as He wedges His cross into the gaping mouth of a snaggletoothed monster, pointing the way for those caught inside to escape.
“There is something in Brian's work that emphasizes what it means to be human at this moment of time,” said Emmer. “There is delightful humor and immensely joyful moments, as well as recognition of some of the sorrows and weighty burdens that we carry.”
“The Difficult Part: Brian Kershisnik, A Mid-Career Retrospective” will be on display at the MOA from August 16, 2024 – May 3, 2025. “I hope the show can be of use to its attendees — including myself as the artist,” said Kershisnik.
