Montana Black: Religious iconography plays a large role in work

Sam Morris

Religious iconography is an important element of the work of artist Montana Black, who places God or a sense of God in such quotidian settings as a diner.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Name: Montana Black, visual artist

Age: 43

Education: Bachelor of fine arts, UNLV

Day job: Project coordinator at Giroux Glass

Her art: Religious iconography plays a large role in Black’s work, whether abstract or figurative. She studied icon painting and places God, or the sense of God, in otherwise ordinary contemporary settings.

Early works included diners portrayed as holy places and triptychs of condiments and other diner ephemera — a coffee cup flanked by squeezable ketchup and mustard containers. Subjects in her figurative works are often surrounded by a glow or halo.

She incorporates spirituality with elements of nature and occasionally includes the poetry of Rumi. Her angel series places wings on portraits of people in her life, most of whom are mingling with nature.

She reconfigures religious stories, placing John the Baptist with a lotus flower and a reinterpretation of Eve, which shows her as a young, conservatively dressed girl innocently holding an apple.

Getting to Vegas: Born and raised in Las Vegas, Black graduated from Rancho High School and now lives in Boulder City. She and her husband, Ken, own Art with Intention, a business that promotes artwork for healing and consciousness raising.

Becoming an artist: Black had planned to become a park ranger (inspired by her mother’s love of the outdoors and environmental literature), then changed her mind at age 19 after falling in love with religious art and architecture on a two-month trip to Europe. She returned to Las Vegas and changed her major to art. Before that, she had never entertained having an art degree. After college she worked various jobs, which included assisting artist Robert Beckmann.

Exhibits: She is one of four artists whose work is featured in the county public art project “The Bus Stops Here,” which places art in nearly 100 transit shelters. Black’s piece, “Elaine,” is a portrait of a woman and giraffe, representing our “communion with nature.” She recently had a solo exhibit at the Sahara West Library and was part of the group show “It’s a Girl Thing” at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center. Her artwork will be installed at University Medical Center in November.

Her angel series: “My deepening spiritual belief is that we are divine. We are the angels we’re always wanting to see or evoke or create. My work is designed to plant a seed, to say, ‘You are bigger than you think you are. I don’t think you understand how vast or powerful you are.’ Everything is made up of God, the universe or stardust. God is here right now.”

Inspirations: Gregory Gillespie, Monica Cook, David Hockney’s writings and Jim Dine.

Other interests: Camping, hiking, yoga, jazz.

Sticking around? “In the last couple of years I’ve felt like I might leave. I’m definitely thinking about the Bay Area, but I don’t see this happening right away. What has kept me here is my love of the desert.”