Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 27, 2024 – January 20, 2025
Ahmed Hilmi, Calligraphic composition in the form of a lion, and watercolor on paper. Turkey, April 19, 1913
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s (MFAH) latest exhibition, Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples, presents a sweeping visual journey through the narratives that have shaped humanity’s understanding of existence over 4,000 years. Displayed in a grand, high-ceilinged gallery, the exhibition unites ancient artifacts and contemporary works, offering insights into how diverse cultures have grappled with questions of origin, spirituality, and communal life. The MFAH’s dedication to being an encyclopedic museum is present here. There are marvelous specimens from across the world and history. Works large and small, sculptural and pictorial, and sometimes many things of those things at once.
Celestial Conch Shell with Skulls, Huastec, Mexico, C. 900-1521
There are many awe-inspiring cultural artifacts that exhibit a technical ability to imbue astronomical or mathematically developed objects with fine aesthetics, like the Huastec Celestial Conch Shell with Skulls (900–1521), an exquisite example of Mesoamerican artistry that merges cosmic and mortal symbolism. Contrasting its historical weight is Ólafur Elíasson’s Your Lunar Nebula (2015), which evokes celestial wonder through modern abstraction.
Another gallery devoted to sacred calligraphy dazzles with its typographic artistry. Ahmed Hilmi’s Calligraphic Composition in the Form of a Lion (1913) epitomizes the synthesis of textual devotion and aesthetic beauty, inviting viewers to consider the intersection of faith and design. The so-called Abrahamic Faiths have been primarily divided into separate galleries, with few other world religions included. This is an acceptable disambiguation, although it is somewhat curious, because of redundancy: There are similarly separated galleries of artifacts of the same religions just below the exhibition in the same building. The focus of this exhibition, by contrast, is to incorporate contemporary fine art into the conversation. While it may not display the same virtuosity as many ancient works, it aligns well with the theme.
Naudline Pierre, “For I Will Strike and I Will Soothe,” 2022
Naudline Pierre’s For I Will Strike and I Will Soothe is a sensible contribution here, despite how recent and spiritually ambiguous the painting is, which is typical of her work. Humanoid and animal figures entangle in the air while black flames lick at their forms; strangely violent angels which appear as heads wrapped in wings encircle the composition. William Blake and El Greco are influences here.
There are also mysterious motifs that connect to present-day religious symbols, but only partially. A series of “cruciform” figures from Cyprus, which date to roughly 3000 BC, form a gestural of the cross by way of their crossed arms perpendicular to their rigid bodies. These figures were found in tombs, with no writing from the time referring to them. They tend to be relatively slender, as compared to other female motifs like the various African fertility effigies found in prehistoric times.
Christ and Buddha share a central gallery, where works from across millennia help to contextualize who these figures are within cultural aesthetics. In both cases, these deity-like human figures are interpreted stylistically across the ages and various cultures. There is a small figure of Christ on the crucifix produced by the Kongo peoples on the cusp of the 20th century, alongside didactic text that explains how the motif of the crucifix aligned neatly with indigenous spiritual practices of the sun’s fours moments (the four quadrants of the cross), and the nails affixing Christ to the cross (Kongo peoples already had a practice of inserting nails into “power figures”).
This exhibition offers a compelling visual exploration of how religious practices define the sacred and reflect subjective experiences within social structures.
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Jennifer Godínez: Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá at Pencil on Paper Gallery, January 11 – February 1, 2025
Jennifer Godínez, “Inspiración,” sumi ink on Arches paper
Pencil on Paper Gallery features an exhibition that cuts deep into the fraught emotional terrain of immigration and identity. Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá, featuring works by DACA recipient and recent graduate of the University of North Texas, Jennifer Godínez, delivers an intimate suite of sumi ink drawings on Arches paper tacked to the wall with pins. Each piece, with its fluid gestural quality and deliberate monochromatic palette, resonates with the quiet turmoil of living in the in-between — torn between the borders of the United States and Mexico, and between the imagined past and an uncertain future.
Jennifer Godínez, “Qué perdi al alcanzar el sueño americano (What I lost to achieve the American dream),” sumi ink on Arches paper
In Qué perdí al alcanzar el sueño americano (What I lost to achieve the American dream) (2024), the largest work in the exhibition, the artist wields her tools — a humble collection of dollar-store eyeshadow brushes and old liners — with meticulous care. Despite the limited means, the results are monumental. This piece, at 83 x 52 ½ inches, is both imposing and tender. The strokes alternate between bold, decisive lines and delicate pauses, creating a rhythm that reflects the conflicted journey of its maker. The vast white space serves as an active element, evoking absence, possibility, and loss.
Other works, like Terapia (Therapy) and Desilusión (Disillusion), delve into the narratives of transformation and exhaustion. Figures recline as if weighted by the act of reflection itself. In their stillness, they seem to draw their own stories, reimagining paths that never were. The invisible character of these pieces — the expansive white space — is an expert use of gestalt as well as restraint in formal composition.
The artist’s materials are as meaningful as her imagery. The deliberate use of repurposed tools — specifically a NYX liquid liner for fine detailing — underscores the resourcefulness demanded of immigrants and the precariousness of her status as a DREAMer. This fragility finds expression in the thematic underpinnings of the exhibition: the constant renewal of DACA and the uneasy relationship with “home.”
Beyond its technical prowess, this body of work reads as a collective diary, where each piece narrates a chapter of lived experience. The progression through the gallery mirrors the erosion of hope as the years wear on, an existential reckoning laid bare on cold-pressed paper. The narratives are deeply personal, yet they resonate universally, highlighting how precarious lives are shaped by bureaucracy, politics, and perseverance.
For a recent graduate, the maturity and ambition on display are inspiring. In channeling personal history into art, she bridges the personal and the political, echoing a legacy of artists who transform their lived experiences into universal truths. This exhibition is a testament to resilience — not only of the artist’s hand and materials but also of the human spirit. It stands as both a personal narrative and a broader commentary on the cost of belonging and the weight of displacement. It is a quiet, yet unflinching exhibition of exceptional figure-drawing ability.
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William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor of Glasstire.
