Hope Is the Last Thing
Sacristy Gallery
December 14, 2025 - February 14, 2026
The works in this exhibition are inspired by Epiphany Center for the Arts’ history as a church building, especially the dedicatory plaque hung around the corner in the hall. The grey and white text-based paintings are inspired by the plaque’s color and shape. But while these paintings initially evoke banal, cliched, vaguely uplifting “word art” in vacation rentals and hotels, the language in them quickly veers into denser, darker, trickier, more complicated interpretations.
Though intended to seem like ‘old sayings’ all the texts are original. They are inspired by Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” and the Greek myth of Pandora, who opened a forbidden chest and allowed all the evils in the world to fly out. Panicked, she slammed the chest closed, shutting the gift of hope inside.
The themes of wings, flight and transcendence are continued in the images of birds and boats. Traditional iconography in Christian churches, such images are metaphors for faith and belief. Here again, tropes associated with lightness and beauty reveal their darker side as the birds (our stand-ins?) are sometimes in danger, or in anguish, and boats drift unmoored, without direction. But others float or fly past, unconcerned and unaware.
These works refer to the difficulty of maintaining hope, and the insistence that we keep trying anyway. They call to mind the pain of distress as well as the possibility of grace.
RSVP for the opening reception on Sunday, December 14th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the link below:
Click HERE for more information on gallery hours and private appointments.
Hope Is the Last Thing
Sacristy Gallery
December 14, 2025 - February 14, 2026
The works in this exhibition are inspired by Epiphany Center for the Arts’ history as a church building, especially the dedicatory plaque hung around the corner in the hall. The grey and white text-based paintings are inspired by the plaque’s color and shape. But while these paintings initially evoke banal, cliched, vaguely uplifting “word art” in vacation rentals and hotels, the language in them quickly veers into denser, darker, trickier, more complicated interpretations.
Though intended to seem like ‘old sayings’ all the texts are original. They are inspired by Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” and the Greek myth of Pandora, who opened a forbidden chest and allowed all the evils in the world to fly out. Panicked, she slammed the chest closed, shutting the gift of hope inside.
The themes of wings, flight and transcendence are continued in the images of birds and boats. Traditional iconography in Christian churches, such images are metaphors for faith and belief. Here again, tropes associated with lightness and beauty reveal their darker side as the birds (our stand-ins?) are sometimes in danger, or in anguish, and boats drift unmoored, without direction. But others float or fly past, unconcerned and unaware.
These works refer to the difficulty of maintaining hope, and the insistence that we keep trying anyway. They call to mind the pain of distress as well as the possibility of grace.
RSVP for the opening reception on Sunday, December 14th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the link below:
Click HERE for more information on gallery hours and private appointments.
Rebecca Keller’s multidisciplinary career spans art-making across diverse media, research into language and history, and creative writing. She has received grants and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, a TEDx Talk, two Fulbright Awards, and an American Association of Museums International Fellowship.
Her artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hyde Park Art Center, the Portland Art Museum, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the 4th International Waldkunst Biennial, Tartu Art Museum, Chesterwood Museum and Studio, the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, the Elmhurst Art Museum, Glessner House Museum, the Estonian National Art Museum, and the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, among many other venues and projects across the U.S., China, Europe, and Brazil.
Her writing on art has been published by The Public Historian and the textbook Art and Public History (Rowman & Littlefield). She is the author of Excavating History: When Artists Take on Historic Sites (Stepsister Press), a book exploring her work in historic environments. Her essay “Mazes and Mirrors, Reflections and Play” was published by the Franz Hals Museum.
Keller also writes fiction. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and her debut novel, You Should Have Known, was released by Crooked Lane Books/Penguin Random House in 2023. Her fiction will also appear in the forthcoming anthology “20 Over 60” from Regal House Press.
Rebecca Keller’s multidisciplinary career spans art-making across diverse media, research into language and history, and creative writing. She has received grants and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, a TEDx Talk, two Fulbright Awards, and an American Association of Museums International Fellowship.
Her artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hyde Park Art Center, the Portland Art Museum, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the 4th International Waldkunst Biennial, Tartu Art Museum, Chesterwood Museum and Studio, the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, the Elmhurst Art Museum, Glessner House Museum, the Estonian National Art Museum, and the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, among many other venues and projects across the U.S., China, Europe, and Brazil.
Her writing on art has been published by The Public Historian and the textbook Art and Public History (Rowman & Littlefield). She is the author of Excavating History: When Artists Take on Historic Sites (Stepsister Press), a book exploring her work in historic environments. Her essay “Mazes and Mirrors, Reflections and Play” was published by the Franz Hals Museum.
Keller also writes fiction. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and her debut novel, You Should Have Known, was released by Crooked Lane Books/Penguin Random House in 2023. Her fiction will also appear in the forthcoming anthology “20 Over 60” from Regal House Press.
