Arts at Heavenly Rest
Our mission for the Arts at the Church of the Heavenly Rest is to shine as a community where artistic creativity of many forms is valued as a spiritual practice and a force for reconciliation.
We are situated on Museum Mile on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. We aim to nurture artists, deepen our shared experience of their work, and invite the greater community to explore our shared humanity through art.
The Arts at Heavenly Rest hosts six art exhibitions annually in the CHR Undercroft Gallery, including an annual All Parish Art Show, large installations, readings, and dance performances in the Nave.
Below are our upcoming programs and selected recordings from past programming!
For more information, contact Lucas Thorpe.
Heavenly Rest Undercroft Gallery
Undercroft Gallery Viewing Hours: Monday - Sunday, 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm. The Gallery is closed for viewing on major Holidays.
Parts of the exhibition can be closed during Heavenly Rest programs and rentals.
Upcoming Art Exhibition
James DeWoody - Inward and Outward—Past and Present
Reception with the Artist: Tuesday, May 7, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
On view: May 5th - August 18th
Inward and Outward—Past and Present at Heavenly Rest is a retrospective art exhibition in the Undercroft Gallery that examines the evolution of DeWoody's art from his youth to the present. After Jim DeWoody’s military service, he came to New York City for graduate school at The Pratt Institute in 1972. Since then, he has worked in downtown Manhattan, making art in his Tribeca studio and teaching art in college.
DeWoody’s family joined Heavenly Rest in 1981, and he, his children, and Molly Gross collected meals cooked by parishioners in the Cooks Who Care program and delivered them to people in need. Subsequently, he became more deeply involved and supported the Heavenly Rest Narthex shelter program, two rector search committees, the CHR building committee, the Vestry, and the Darlington Hall and Undercroft renovations.
Art, architecture, and design have been the most exciting parts of his life in the Heavenly Rest parish community, advocating for the integrity of the building and its architects while remaining open to new ideas on how better to enable the call that draws us here, the steadfast desire to connect and to do good in the world. Go forth to love and serve.
Contact lthorpe@heavenlyrest.org for more information.
Past Group Exhibition
Pathways - Curated by Sara Evans
Sara Evans, writer, and Heavenly Rest parishioner brings a group exhibition to the CHR Undercroft Gallery based on the theme of “Pathways:” Why artists work in their chosen mediums. This exhibition of selected artists highlights works from memorable conversations Sara has had with many of them in their studios.
Selected Artists include Bennett Sykes Blackburn, Louise Blackburn, Jeremy Garretson, Erin Gillett, Lisa Gillett, Leslie Hagg, Juliana Lazzaro, Yolene Legrand, Gerry McElroy, Tom McElroy, Ari Mintz, Paula Nadelstern, Wendy Prellwitz, Colleen Rudolf, Adam Straus, Laura Waterbury.
February - April 2024
Past Exhibition
The Holy Family - A Stranger and You Welcomed Me
An Exhibition of Icons by Kelly Latimore at the Church of the Heavenly Rest Undercroft Gall
Kelly Latimore is an artist and iconographer from St. Louis, MO. He started painting icons in 2010. Latimore's icons often mix classic orthodox iconographic imagery with figures representing the marginalized and the oppressed among us here and now. The exhibition at CHR features Icons representing the Holy Family in migration, seeking safety, and encountering welcome. More of Kelly Latimore's work can be viewed Here .
December - March 2024
Past Group Exhibition
THE MIRROR BLUE NIGHT
A group exhibition curated by Patrick Neal features eighteen artists' works in the Undercroft Gallery at the Church of the Heavenly Rest.
Nighttime has always been a muse for artists, and nocturnes have existed as timeless subjects across the arts, as ubiquitous as the cycle of night and day. When the earth spins on its axis and turns away from the sun, humans cloaked in darkness undergo a unique period of repose, mystery, and stillness.
September - November 2023
Past Exhibition
Everything must go!
A solo exhibition by Visual Artist and Parishioner Roland de Fries in the Undercroft Gallery at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. The tongue-in-cheek-themed exhibition titled 'Everything must go!' plays with our perceptions and obsessions of luxury and luxuries. Presented across a wide range of mediums, this new body of work exclusively created for this exhibition includes paintings, drawings, photography, film, and 3-dimensional objects, including an ongoing series of painted-over black & white photography from Rome and Lower Manhattan.
May - August 2023
Past Group Exhibition
Love Bade Me Welcome
The Arts at Heavenly Rest invites the greater Heavenly Rest Community to view Love Bade Me Welcome this March and April in the Undercroft Gallery at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. Love Bade Me Welcome is a poem by George Herbert, a 17th-century Welsh poet and Anglican clergyman. The poem speaks to Love personified.
March - April 2023
Past Group Exhibition
SEEN
Fountain House Gallery, representing artists living and creating with mental illness, announces the upcoming group exhibition SEEN: Portraits of Fountain House Artists by Parishioner and Photographer Carmel Fromson in the Undercroft Gallery. Nearly 60 Gallery artists are represented in SEEN; their portraits were taken during several sessions over the past year. Each artist will also have a representative piece of artwork included in the show.
January - February 2023
Past Exhibition
The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship (Remember me)
Remember me, found text from an 1866 vintage postcard the artist Hank Willis Thomas discovered at the Amistad Center of Art and Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will be featured as part of a collaborative project with his mother, the scholar Dr. Deborah Willis, with images from her book, The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship.
August - December 2022
Past Exhibition
Spirit Drivin Stitching
The Rev. Posey Krakowsky, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of New York, is also an artist, theologian, and writer. A lifelong fiber artist, Posey's specialty is quilting, but she also knits, weaves, paints, sews, and works with beads. Posey's quilting pieces are multi-layered and rich and take months to complete. We are excited to bring several of her Quilts to the Heavenly Rest Undercroft Gallery.
November - December 2022
Past Group Exhibition
Invisible Attraction
Curated by Michael Lee, The artists in the exhibition share a focus on abstraction and the challenge of making work that is informed by invisible phenomena: notions of memory and consciousness or the webs of relationships among things and individuals. While many also look to the natural world or human-made built environments and systems for inspiration, it is a desire to tap into the experiential quality of being present in a moment of discovery that drives these artists to create.
September - November 2022
