There Is Healing in a Story: An Invitation to Spiritual Art by Jennifer McCormick
Wednesday, January 23 through Friday, February 22
Mint Hill Arts Center
Mint Hill Arts is proud to feature, from mid-January through the end of February, the stunning, provocative spiritual art of Winston-Salem artist Jennifer McCormick. McCormick, a certified medical illustrator, uses x-rays of real injuries submitted to her in her work and transforms them into images of healing and hope.
McCormick earned a master’s degree in Medical and Biological Illustration from Johns Hopkins University and worked as a medical illustrator at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. After a second career teaching figure drawing and animation at the International Fine Arts College in Miami, she founded Art for Law & Medicine, Inc., which provides medical demonstrative evidence for attorneys and their clients.
McCormick found that illustrating trauma on a daily basis led her to wonder about the spiritual aspects of healing. She discovered that a diagnostic image can become an emotional Rorschach test that inspires meditations on the patient’s recovery. The resulting art, which she refers to as “X-Ray Visions,” has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions around the country and was the subject of a Tedx talk in 2015 called “Mindful Creativity.” She was invited recently to address the attendees of the Spiritist Medical Association in Miami; there she learned how clinicians are acknowledging spirituality in therapeutic settings and at the bedside.
McCormick’s show is co-sponsored with Mint Hill Arts by the Marianne Oberg Foundation for Spiritual Art. MOFSA was founded by Bob Oberg in memory of his wife Marianne, an accomplished artist, student, and practitioner of Spiritism and active member of Mint Hill Arts until her untimely death in 2012. Jennifer was touched by Marianne’s art and her story. She asked Bob for permission to use her final diagnostic films to inspire art in response to the journey through physical form and into the realm of spirit. The resulting new body of work, “There Is Medicine in a Story“, is included in the exhibit.
Jennifer McCormick is the recipient of MOFSA’s first spiritual art grant. She says that MOFSA’s grant gave her full permission to explore spirituality in a way she had not done before. The results of her exploration will be the focus of “There is Healing in a Story: An Invitation to Spiritual Art,” which opens on Wednesday, January 23, at the Mint Hill Arts gallery at 11205 Lawyers Road in Mint Hill. The opening reception, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. on Friday, January 25. The show will hang until Friday, February 22. The gallery is open from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and we hope not only the arts community, but also anyone interested in spirituality, will visit the gallery and experience this special show.