New Yorker brings Mennonite heritage paintings to Goshen, reception Jan. 13

GOSHEN, Ind. – At her exhibit opening in the New York City gallery Margaret Thatcher Projects, Jayne Holsinger’s worlds collided. Many of the Lancaster County Mennonites in her paintings were on hand and “having them near their portraits created a spectacle,” Holsinger said. “New Yorkers were thoroughly delighted by this unusual treat. It was special.” And the show also was favorably received with good press coverage, sales, interest and feedback.

Now, part of that show is on display at Goshen College’s Hershberger Art Gallery (in the Music Center), with a reception on Jan. 13 from 2 to 4 p.m., and Holsinger, the artist, is planning to be in attendance from New York. The exhibit will be on display until Jan. 30.

Holsinger’s oil-on-panel paintings movingly capture the spirit and humanity of her subjects. Her current series delves into her Anabaptist background and heritage to explore the simple lives of a Mennonite family and community. She grew up locally, attending Osceola (Ind.) Church of the Brethren until about the age of 13 when her family left the church. “Much of the research for my paintings has been to uncover, discover and recover what had been lost in that breach,” she said. As well, her mother’s side of the family were of Mennonite descent and Holsinger now attends the Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship congregation.

The exhibit will include seven paintings on the Mennonite theme, including portraits or figures in interiors and landscapes. The works are photo-based, and rely on carefully rendered serial images from single sittings. The show will also include an earlier series of Holsinger’s works from the mid-1990s based on quilt forms and collages of early advertising images from women’s magazines.

“The recent portrait series of Mennonites is the first time I have focused on the subject exclusively. As evidenced by the quilt paintings though, aspects of my heritage were touched on earlier,” she said.

While she was working on this series, she was simultaneously studying for a master’s degree in Europe and was researching Dutch genre painting. “The whole experience intensified the thought process as I began making conscious links of Dutch painting in the 17th century to Dutch Mennonites,” Holsinger said. “That spurred me to import all sorts of art historical references into the paintings of my Lancaster Mennonite subjects,” such as a Van Gogh sunflower vase on a kitchen table and a Dutch Flemish baroque floral arrangement.

The artist included such references upon learning that the 17th century Dutch Mennonites sat for paintings by Rembrandt, patronized the arts and became painters themselves. “Previously I thought Mennonites had no history in the visual arts, aside from quilt making. In fact I thought of them as more linked to iconoclasts when it came to the subject of painting. The work in the series changed at that point from being straight genre paintings to more complex ‘meditations’ on Mennonites as relates to the visual arts.”

Holsinger is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award and was a fellow in the Artist In the Marketplace program at the Bronx Museum for the Arts. She did undergraduate studies at Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., Indiana University in Bloomington and New York Studio School. She recently earned a master’s of fine arts degree from the Transart Institute, a new-media program based in Linz, Austria. To view more of her art, visit her Web site: www.jayneholsinger.com.

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.