‘Rootedness in exile’

From Eva Sturm-Gross’s show “Beasts of Eden,’’ at AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, N.H., Jan. 16-Feb. 14.

The gallery says:

“What does it mean to inherit a broken tradition? Eva Sturm-Gross’s premier solo exhibition, ‘Beasts of Eden,’ represents an invitation into a fragmented symbolic world. The mystics of the Middle Ages teach us that the reality of creation is a shattered one, like the shards of a broken vessel. Her work thus balances the central tension of Jewish diaspora, communicating both a longing for messianic redemption on the one hand and a rootedness in exile on the other. This rootedness is expressed principally by Sturm-Gross through the animals of the Upper {Connecticut River} Valley, her homeland. The creatures that populate ‘Beasts of Eden’ are drawn from her encounters with the natural landscape surrounding her childhood home in Hartland, Vermont. Biblical narratives here are portrayed by the fauna of the Upper Valley.’’