My art engages allegorical themes such as pilgrimage, lamination, absolution and rebirth. Such themes flesh out parable and reveal to me the ancient archetypes reborn in our current world of dissonance and division. These narratives, in all of their mythic and consuming drama, play out metaphorically in our global daily media. One of my intentions as an artist is to bear witness to injustice and to the disenfranchised within our midst. I want my images to disrupt complacency and bestir compassion. From another perspective, I also attempt to express the transcendent aspects of life, especially those liminal experiences where we are entrained by a grace beyond ordinary perception. If one could learn to read the gestures of trees or movements of clouds with clarity, one might be able to decipher them as messengers; to read them as ancient dancers are read. They are signs upon the flesh of the earth, a sensuous calligraphy, ever pressing into our dim vision. It seems not enough to arrange visual elements. I need to be vulnerable to the entrance of the synchronistic, as the spirit uses sentient forms as metaphor. I have a passion for apprehending gesture. Through the intimacy and informality of my sketchbook, I record what it is like to be human at a particular moment, in a specific place, in all the confluence of time. I am able to capture the fleeting and preserve it. The discipline of sketchbook-keeping is a spiritual practice that teaches me to attend to the soul of the world. Through expressions both intimate and expansive - born both of darkness and light - art can inspire our deepest humanity and ignite a culture of empathy. Constance Pierce © 2014

1. Constance Pierce
“The monotypes of Constance Pierce
are responses to a genuinely compulsive
- and at times - convulsive demand from
an ultimateness, that it’s fierce and
consuming drama be given form
and breadth.”
J. W. Mahoney, Washington, DC
Contributor to Art in America and Art News
Of Darkness and Light (exhibition catalog essay)
constancemarie777@gmail.com
Above: Voice in the Wilderness
(monotype/collage 3' x 4.5')
Left:
Crucifixion: Sins of Genocide
(oil on canvas 3' x 4')
"Using deep bloody reds and
the dark blues of medieval stained
glass, Pierce explores expressive
possibilities inherent in the more
violent phases of the Christian
mythos - crucifixion and apocalypse
- as well as recuperative notions of
communion and absolution."
Douglas Utter
New Art Examiner

2. Right: Flight into Egypt
(monotype with pastel added)
"These images will touch Christians and
non-Christians alike. They are simple,
direct portrayals of archetypal human
situations, brought alive by Pierce's
unusual ability to express pain, grief
and revelation ... The raised arms and
luminosity surrounding the figure in
'Voice in the Wilderness' tell of the
passion of the search for truth ... Her
talent for handling lush, deep color is
striking ..."
Mary McCoy, Washington Post
Below: Road to Emmaus
(monotype)

3. Left and below:
Studies from a Dante sketchbook
(Inks on brown aper)
"Pierce... invites us to contemplate
the figure from a specific realm of
experience: religious symbolism...
Pierce, with various painterly and
'automatic' gestures, shows her
mastery of the medium's inherent
expressionism ... I fortunately
sensed no sanctimoniousness...
I thought not only of my mortal self
and all the vicissitudes it faces, but
also of how my body - any body- is
consciously or unconsciously a
maker and reader of signs."
Stephen Flinn Young
NUMBER: An Independent Quarterly
"Understanding these visual images is... like a
mystery: the images remain a vessel of compact
visual meaning, forever fecund of a revelation
which can only partially be formulated in
speech, forever putting us in touch with that
which they enigmatically make present."
Richard Freis
Emeritus Professor of Classics, Millsaps College
"The Discipline of Images:
The Art of Constance Pierce"
IMAGE: Art - Faith - Mystery (Volume 13)

4. Lamentations of War
(graphite and wash series)
Left: The Dispossessed
"Pierce is able to impart such
a compassionate awareness
of the human condition, such
a sense os spiritual longing,
that her monotypes
transcend any particular
creed."
Janet Wilson
Washington Post
Below: The Prisoner Bound
"The subjects of Constance
Pierce's sketchbooks are rooted
in Christianity and ancient
themes of suffering, betrayal
and redemption ... Pierce is
seeking positive change through
spiritual intervention. She travels
inward in search of salvation and
fulfillment..."
Krystyna Wasserman
Curator of Books Arts
National Museum of Women in
the Arts and Director Emerita of
the NMWA Library and Research
Center (exhibition catalog essay)

5. Left:
Auguries and Emissaries:
Sacrifice of Isaac
(graphite and wash series)
I am compelled by sacred narrative in a
contemporary idiom. My images often bear
witness to injustice, to the dispossessed and
the marginalized within own our midst, yet
also to the presence of Divinity within
ministering emissaries alive upon the earth.
Scriptural stories, in their mythic and
consuming drama, reveal to me the ancient
parables reborn in our current world of
dissonance and division. The moment of
betrayal or resurrection is not ancient
history, but is enacted anew within each soul.
Constance Pierce

6. Left and below:
Sketchbook studies
(inks on brown paper)
I engage my sketchbooks to work
through archetypal concepts for
larger works, to record illusive
flashes of memory and dream, or
simply to document the moment,
as it is perceived and lived.
I have a passion for remembering
gesture. When I quickly sketch
what I see, I am the only person
who may be aware of this subject,
at this very moment, in just this
way, in all of the confluence of
time.
Through my sketchbook journals
I am able to capture the fleeting
and preserve it. By the process of
sketching itself, I am able to offer
surrendered attention to the
given moment.
Sketchbook-keeping can foster a
compassionate awareness, as it
teaches us to attend to
the soul of world.
Constance Pierce

7. Will You Be There
(graphite series)
Left:
In my trials and
in my tribulations
Below:
Through my fear
and my confessions
In some cultures, dance is
considered a sacred, yet permeable,
link between the realm of the Divine
and ordinary life. In tandem to the art of
dance, Jackson's prescient lyrics in "Will
You Be There" call to mind Old Testament
Psalms, for they depict the soul crying out
to the Divine for intercession. Jackson's
poignant epilogue expresses humanity's
deep longing for rescue from global
tribulations, as well as from the
interior doubts and fears of
postmodern man.
Constance Pierce

8. Epiphany and Loss
(watercolor series)
"In our secular culture wherein the art world's
contributions too often are banal, entropic in
character, and elevate the scatological over the
sacred, Constance insists on and stands for an
alternative."
Catherine Kapikian
Founder and Distinguished Artist-in-Residence:
Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion
Washington, D.C.
My images often involve themes of
pilgrimage, lamentation, absolution
and rebirth. In my watercolors, I attempt
to express the transcendent aspects of
life, especially those times when we are
entrained by a grace beyond ordinary
perception. I experience a need to be
vulnerable to the synchronistic entrance
of spirit, for the elements of the spirit
often use sentient forms as a metaphor.
Constance Pierce

9. Detail:
Wounded Souls, Purgatorio
(watercolor triptych)
"This series of images was
inspired by Dante Alighieri’s
literary piece, Purgatorio. While
her figures are androgynous,
their bodies imply a movement
that signifies the sweetness of
the souls trying to help each
other to paradise."
Stephanie Wytovich
Setonian
Seton Hill University
Constance Pierce
Associate professor, Visual and Performing Arts
St. Bonaventure University, NY (2002 - 2012 tenured)
Creator: Image Journaling and the Inward Journey
Journal seminars, courses, workshops conducted:
Yale Divinity School, research fellow and instructor
Smithsonian Institution, resident art studio faculty
Ursuline College, graduate art therapy, guest artist
716-378-8155
constancemarie777@gmail.com

10. Drawing series in progress 2014: I was moved by the wounded and dead children in Israel and Palestine,
as well as the unarmed teens shot by police in our own country. ~ Drawing is my way of bearing witness.
"Angel of Intercession be fierce in your protection.
Save children from the shards of war and from the bullets in our streets" (3 x 5 ft charcoal)