Health in Enamel

Themes of health, healing, and spirituality crystallize with a survey of current enamel holdings in the Metal Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition features a series of recent acquisitions, in addition to examples long familiar to the Metal Museum collection and community. Featured are Martha Banyas’ twelve panel “Valley and Shadow” series, which chronicled the artist’s journey through cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery using southeast Asian religious symbolism. Yet unexhibited copper engravings from Dorothy Sturm’s background in medical illustration give context to her biomorphic abstract forms in her later enameled panels. In addition, newly acquired works by artists such as Michelle Startzman, Andrew Kuebeck, and Hosanna Rubio explore topics of illness, healing, and religious beliefs. 

The exhibition will also include over 100 examples of enameled copper squares submitted by artists from around the world. In memory of Martha Banyas and in celebration of the recent growth in our enamel holdings, the Metal Museum invited artists to participate in an Enameled Community Quilt. The project echoes the spirit and intentions behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt project, first displayed to the public in 1987, and recent Cancer Quilt projects.   

Our community quilt project encourages enamel artists, museum visitors, and students to explore and grow in their shared expressions of health issues, spirituality, and the body. With Martha’s exploration of her own cancer diagnosis and healing in her Valley and Shadow series as a source of inspiration, we invite artists to submit enameled squares that express their own perspectives or experiences related to health, spirituality, and the body.