Interpretations of symbols, stories at heart of Terrain’s ‘Sacred Stories’

The way a piece of art is interpreted depends on who’s looking at it. The viewer may be spot on with the artist’s intension or they might see something the artist never considered.

It’s not necessarily wrong, just different.

Stories, too, change depending on who’s telling them. If the person telling the story is the “hero,” the details might be exaggerated to heighten the excitement. Or if the storyteller is embarrassed, certain parts might be downplayed.

Again, not totally wrong, just different versions.

Uziel González and Sarah Windisch, whose work is featured in “Sacred Stories,” on display at Terrain Gallery through March 21, created work that deals with interpretation and the telling of stories.

What do you think of when looking at a number, a playing card or a Tarot card? What do you think when hearing stories from your parents about their parents or grandparents? Do these thoughts and stories feel informative for yourself in some way?

As someone who is not religious, Windisch loves religious iconography, calling it a beautiful way to express faith. She’s used religious iconography in past work, but she likes to turn the images on their head. The sacred hearts in her pieces in “Sacred Stories,” for example, are anatomical.

She’s also focused on cartomancy, or the practice of fortune telling using a deck of cards. Except her cards are more intricately decorated than ones you’d find at a poker table. Plus, the hearts in her cards represent the cups in Tarot.

“Using it as an Oracle to me fits with the whole mysticism of religion in a great way,” she said. “It became a cool exploration of that.”

The ace card, “Awake,” features a heart with angel wings, an open eye at the center and the nine of hearts card, “Imagine,” features an ’80s-esque background featuring vibrant yellows, pinks and blues with “You Make My Dreams Come True” written out with collaged letters.

The five of hearts card, “Hysteria,” features a photo of a mouth open mid-scream with the heart at the center, and the six of hearts card, “Champion,” features two blue hands holding a golden heart, surrounded by rays of sunlight.

“These are definitely onion pieces where there are so, so so many layers,” Windisch said. “The six is traditionally masculine and the five is traditionally feminine. So the six, it’s called ‘Champion,’ and it’s in response to all of the wonderful men that I know. I know artists and musicians and poets and queers and it’s not toxic at all. It’s this support that you would hope to get from the men in your life, where five is female rage. It is feminine rage, 1,000%. It’s called ‘Hysteria.’ That’s how I feel right now all the time.”

The queen and jack cards are the largest of the bunch, a connection to those cards, along with the king, usually being given the most weight of any card in the deck. The jack looks like a standard card with a black-and-white image of a man upright and reflected upside down, and the queen looks like a modern saint, a woman with a crop top and hand and neck tattoos surrounded by colorful strips of fabric.

The jack was created at Big Ink, a traveling print workshop with a large press, when they stopped by the Hive, and the queen was created during Emerge Gallery’s Ink Print Rally.

Windisch doesn’t usually work so large, so she saw those two events as a good opportunity to try her work on a bigger scale.

The king, on the other hand, is the smallest of all the cards.

“It’s called ‘No Kings,’ because obviously, but also, it’s cut out. It’s the shadow,” she said. “If you’re reading something into my pieces, it’s 100 percent right, I’m sure. It’s kind of the deal with the oracles too, right? It might mean something specific, but what you get out of it is so much more important than what the meaning is supposed to be.”

González realizes stories change as they’re shared from one person to another, from one generation to another, so using woodblock for his portraits of people who migrated from Latin America made perfect sense.

“I was capturing people’s real stories, and that same process of being able to carve something into wood and be able to print it multiple times, I feel like that is almost like mirroring or reflecting the same things that happen when our families tell those stories from generation to generation,” he said. “I was interested in exploring that side of it, the stories being passed down from one generation to another and the way that I’m able to capture someone’s story, I would say, permanently.”

González began gathering stories by talking with his parents about what it was like to move to the U.S. Understanding their lives made him understand the way he and his sister were raised.

Because he was asking direct questions and not just having a casual conversation, González was able to learn things his parents had never shared before. He realized the same might be true of others in his life, and he began interviewing the parents of his friends and co-workers.

He was very specific about why they were having those conversations, letting interviewees know he was trying to capture and respect their stories, especially as many shared vulnerable sides of their stories as well as the stories of their own parents. With what he knows of his friends, González was then able to have three generations of stories to draw from.

The majority of his pieces in “Sacred Stories” are black-and-white woodprints of women and men. “Elena” is surrounded by flowers and foliage, while “Gladys” appears with a mountain range towering over a small town and a young woman, presumably, with her daughter.

There is a bit of an industry-meets-nature feel to “José,” as he appears with what looks like metal pipes being overrun with vines, and “Antonio” is surrounded by a fish, deer and apple tree.

González is interested in identity and assimilating to a different culture and felt pressure to properly represent the stories of those he interviewed.

“I made it clear to them I am not here to expose your story,” he said. “I am going to be private about what you share with me and what I represent visually, I take this as a personal project. ‘If you were my parent, what would I want to have other people see about them.’ ”

González’s father does get a shoutout in three screenprinted images that are part of the show: “Apples,” “Pears” and “Grapevine.” These are the only three works González created for the show that feature color. He pulled the greens and reds that typically show up in orchards to honor his father’s past work of picking apples and pears and taking care of grapevines.

When he applied to show at Terrain Gallery three years ago, González said things weren’t so hostile for members of the Latino community. But he feels like the timing is perfect, because, in this hostile environment, he has the space to share stories.

Everyone’s background and upbringing is different, he said, but there are things that connect people regardless of language differences and borders that are put up. Yes, the people featured in his works are members of the Latino community, but they’re people first.

“Many of them shared that they were willing to share their stories because they were, let’s say, on the ground level, they work with different people from different places, and the narrative that we hear and that we receive from others is that there’s this divide,” he said. “But really, if people are open and willing to learn, there is a conversation there. I feel like it does open up the world for the person.”