Exploring 'Prayers and Secrets' at the Soul Gallery

Prayer makes up an astronomical portion of Katherine Bruce’s work, but it’s not prayer directed toward any sort of deity. 

“It seems to be my life. Prayer is my life,” she says as she sits amongst the works that make up Prayers and Secrets, her latest exhibition which is on at the Soul Gallery in the Exchange District. “They go together hand in hand. I can’t do art until I feel something within me, which some people would call prayer.” 

Elements of collage and abstraction make up Bruce’s expressions of prayers and secrets. Acrylic paint on canvas mixes with random elements in her studio that speak to her, whether it be images of the pottery that she used to create or old receipts that become incorporated on a whim. 

“The collage has always surprised me,” says Bruce of the combinations in her works. “It usually comes closer to the end after I’ve slowed down, but there’s still the magic happening. And the collage aspects of anything I do are a total ‘Wow, man, I don’t know where that’s coming from!’ I will just flip open a magazine and I’ll see something, tear it, put it up, and go, ‘That’s perfect!’ Like, how could that have just occurred?” 

These moments of divine inspiration encapsulate the prayer element of the show. The secrets come from the moments of spiritual and artistic struggle that go into the process of creating the pieces, which could take years. For Bruce, who has been in the spiritual discipline of art for many years, these moments are expected and accepted as part of the process. “We don’t go up a hill without going down a hill and up another hill,” she shrugs.  

“I think an artist has to get to that point where there is nothing – there's no mistake. It’s always a response. It's a conversation – it's responding to what’s there. And also, after you’ve worked on something for a while, you have to let it go. You have to step back. It has to dry a bit because it changes how it looks once it’s dry. And then you go back in and take a new vision, have new vision, new heart, new day.” 

Prayers and Secrets is on display at the Soul Gallery on Albert Street until October 4. Hours and more information are available at the gallery’s website.