Review by Les Roka

Her Maiden Name, by Genesis Jerez, is the 2021 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting winner. The exhibit comprises six large works produced on mixed media of charcoal, paper, and oil on linen and featuring various elements, including old photos, photocopied transfers, and patterns and textiles. Jerez, takes the artistic technique and craft of collage to a mesmerizing, absorbing level of viewing. The works emerge from old family photographs, but the artist meticulously navigates the reproduction of the stories behind those photographed memories with an eye toward preserving the family’s right of privacy and discretion.

But even as Jerez deliberately sustains discretion in the utmost fashion, each of these large-scale works offers a prodigious accounting of the memories of places integral to her life and family history. Thus, the viewer is invited to approach the experience as closely as possible but also comprehends that one can never fully understand the artist’s provenance, ancestry, and accumulation of life experiences as she meditates and reflects upon them. She anchors the presentation of her work with the verse of Romans 14:13: “Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”

Indeed, the significance of this particular Scriptural reference flows effusively throughout Jerez’s work. The prerogative of judgment does not rest with humans and, in fact, those who attempt to judge do so at the risk of revealing their self-righteousness or contemptuous superiority. It is this which burdens us with pervasive disrespect and lack of harmony, thereby preventing us from realizing what could be the potential of genuine Christianity with humane empathy. We would do well collectively to avoid the reflexive temptation to always criticize.