Sacred Forms: Paintings by Cathy Key, Sculptures by Louise Solecki Weir

The English word “sacred” has its roots in the Latin sacer, meaning “set apart,” “consecrated” or “holy,” taking a more specific turn in the 1550s, when its meaning expanded to include anything worthy of great respect, reverence or protection. For Sacred Forms artists Cathy Key and Louise Solecki Weir, the sacred, as expressed in their co-written statement, traces “the relationship between the human psyche, the living world and the unseen dimensions that shape our experience.”

Fertile Ground (2026) is one of eight mixed- media paintings Key has contributed to the exhibition. Here, the artist uses a range of earth tones associated with the Old Masters painting style to produce a portrait that recalls the work of da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt, though the subject seems more modern. There are no hints as to the age, gender, family relation or occupation of this subject, only the appearance of someone embodying a bygone era, much like the garland-clad, “Arcadian” models German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden staged and captured in early 20th-century Taormina, Sicily.

Of Weir’s 12 ceramic sculptures, Lullaby for Earth and Sky, Opus 8 (2023) is most striking, a recipient of the National Sculpture Society Gold Medal/Charlotte Geffken Prize. The subject is an infant, eyes closed, emerging from an abstract tricoloured form reminiscent of a swaddling cloth or the body of a bird. “Children are born with a purity and unique purpose that can be viewed as cosmic wisdom,” says Weir. “I felt compelled to do this sculpture and loved the outcome.”

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