Gary L. Wolfe will present a talk on his career and major portrait series “Out of Darkness: Putting a Face on Homelessness,” on Sunday, September 29th at 2:00 p.m. in the Quick Center’s Winifred Shortell Kenney Gallery, 2nd Floor of the Museum.
Wolfe, along with Karen Carman from the Matt Urban Hope Center in Buffalo, will speak to the audience about the series and the problems surrounding the homeless. Along to meet guests will be a few of the people who sat for portraits with the artist. Each portrait is painted in a manner that captures not only the vulnerability and social alienation experienced by these individuals, but also their human dignity and the hope to which they cling.
“My greatest lesson in doing this series of portraits was to learn that there is no ‘they,’” said Wolfe. “Saint Bonaventure wrote that everything in creation is an example and illustration of the one God mystery in space and time. The persons painted in these pictures helped me to see our mutual oneness in this mystery. Hence, it seems a natural and fitting thing to show these works at St. Bonaventure University and I am honored to have this opportunity to do so.”
Collaborating with the Quick Center on this project is the university’s Franciscan Center for Social Concern (FCSC), which is working to establish a food pantry on campus this fall.
“As part of the kickoff to the exhibition and the pantry, we invite students, staff and faculty – as well as parents and the public – to join us in placing non-perishable food items in the colorful boxes around the campus,” said Alice Miller Nation, director of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern.
The talk is free and open to the public with refreshments to follow. We ask anyone attending to please bring a non-perishable item to contribute to the student food pantry.
