Dianne Bennett- “Heavenly Bodies” An Online Exclusive Exhibition

An Online Exclusive Exhibition

La Luz de Jesus Gallery is thrilled to present an online exclusive exhibition by artist Dianne Bennett

Dianne Bennett paints portraits of wildlife on road signs as warnings to STOP and ask ourselves what is sacred. She believes that wild beings connect us to the cosmos and are a vehicle of deliverance, transformation, and awakening– bearing witness to our traits of madness and over-consumption.

“eye witness/heavenly bodies at the end of the road”
Living in the Mojave Desert at the end of a dirt road with the jackrabbits, ravens, quail,other wild residents, I watch their daily struggle for survival even in the best of circumstances. In my isolation during quarantine, jackrabbits have become gurus, hummingbirds guides, quail council, and ravens harbingers.

When quarantine began in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and life as we knew
it was canceled,the jackrabbit and cottontail rabbit population, already impacted by habitat loss and global climate change were facing a deadly disease of their own, the Rabbit hemorrhagic disease serotype 2 (RHDV2).
Upon finding several rabbit’s bodies in the desert near my home, and grieving our parallel experience of the pandemic with its uncertainty and threats, I began painting a series of reverential portraits of wild desert inhabitants and visitors on recycled numbered metal signs as prayers and offerings to whatever might be out there.

Eye witness
Heavenly bodies
(in their rightful place)
Above yonder
A constellation
Floating away in space
Cinderella planets
At the end of this road
In the desert
A kind of purgatory
I heard about in catechism
As we pray to our devices
watching helpless to a cataclysm
In quarantine we share
looking out my window
at a blessed beings stare
back at my anxiety
so, my guru is a hare.
always in this moment
I give his advice a try

to get the voice in my head
that says I’m gonna die!
To realize that no matter what
we’re all gonna end up dead
In the end
It’s how we live that matters
Or something like that
He said.
And in case
I am forgetting
To ask for faith I might just be starting
to be getting.
I still count stars and rabbits
In the sky
As ravens watch and bide
their time.
And teach me how to say
good bye

Dianne Bennett August 9, 2020

Contact Gallery Director Matthew Gardocki for purchase info: info@laluzdejesus.com