Artist Talk: Christianity in Contemporary Art

Join us at Gallery 263 for an engaging dialogue on depictions of Christianity in contemporary art. This in-person panel will feature our artist on view, Marcus W. Clarke, on the closing day of his show All Glory, Laud, and Honor, Marlon Forrester, Jennifer Eyl, and Lauren Szumita (biographies below).
Raised under the expansive central Texas sky, Marcus W. Clarke describes his work as both pastoral and foreboding. Clarke interrogates trends and propaganda in visual culture and religion and engages "negative theology," exploring the unknowability of God and the space left open for theological questioning. He studied Advertising and Architectural History at Pratt Institute and The Savannah College of Art and Design before beginning his studio practice in Austin, TX. He was an artist-in-residence at Casa Lu in Mexico City, as well as an artist and curator-in-residence at Vesper Austin. Clarke received his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture and New Media at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2025. He has also pursued theological coursework at Duke Divinity School, and now lives in Worcester, MA, where in addition to his studio practice, he teaches as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Sculpture and 3D Media at College of the Holy Cross.
Special guests:
Marlon Forrester, born 1976 in Guyana, South America, is an artist and educator raised in Boston, MA. He is a recipient of the 2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize and his work is in the collection of the ICA/Boston. Forrester is a graduate of School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, B.A 2008 and Yale School of Art, M.F.A. 2010. He is a resident artist at African American Masters Artist Residency Program (AAMARP) adjunct to the Department of African-American Studies in association with Northeastern University. He worked previously as a painting lecturer at SMFA (2017-2019) and has shown both internationally and nationally. His current body of work explores how through media, Pop Culture, and advertisement the black male body is commodified through the sport of basketball. Utilizing his concept of “disequilibrium” he works to deconstruct the rites and rituals found within the game and life through his drawings, paintings, performance and large-scale installation.

Jennifer Eyl is an Associate Professor at Tufts University, where she is Chair of the Religion department and Co-Director of Middle Eastern Studies. Her research focuses on Christian origins in the Roman Empire. She has published articles in the Journal of Ancient Judaism, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion and the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, as well as chapters in numerous books. She is the author of Signs, Wonders, and Gifts: Divination in the Letters of Paul (Oxford University Press, 2019) and the co-editor of Christian Tourist Attractions, Mythmaking, and Identity Formation (Bloomsbury, 2018). Among her many courses, she teaches a seminar called Jesus from the First to the Twenty-First Century.
Lauren Szumita is the Director of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross. She previously was the Curator at the Fitchburg Art Museum, where she organized Cicely Carew: Quantum Sanctuary (2022), Rania Matar: Oceans at My Door (2023), Paper Town (2023), and FAM’s inaugural façade installation, Gabriel Sosa’s La bodega de mis suenos (ongoing), among others. Prior, she held the position of Curatorial Assistant of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at Worcester Art Museum where she oversaw the Central Massachusetts Artists Initiative (CMAI) rotation for contemporary, regional artists. Lauren holds an MA in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of Oregon and a BA in Art History from Boston College.

This event is free to the public and may be recorded. Donations to our small nonprofit gallery can be made via our website, gallery263.org. Please see our site for directions to our space in Cambridge, MA.

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