Serpent Tree: Gallery Show + Feast Service

From our March 9, 2025 First Sunday of Lent Feast Service Program:

If you closed your eyes and listened to the opening measures of Arturo Rodríguez’s music, you might imagine a paradise: dappled sunshine on your face, a light breeze brushing the backs of your arms and rustling the leaves of a tall, slender willow beside a clear, babbling stream. All is well. But if you glance at the title of the piece, you’ll notice something strange. It’s called Desolación — desolation. A similar enigma emerges in the ceramic works from Serpent Tree by Allison Luce. Take a close look at the artwork on the cover. At first glance, it almost looks like it could be the cover of an Easter service with trumpeting pink and white calla lilies gilded in copper. Its title, Infliction, seems strangely incongruous with the loveliness of its curving forms. But you’ll notice quickly that something’s not quite right. Spadices emerging from the center of the flowers become overly enlarged and drooping in some places and withered and blackened in others. The whole composition seems to be strangling itself, at once both beautiful and sinister. The piece encapsulates the idea of a sickened Eden, of a world so perfect and beautiful cursed to die cyclically — growing and dying, growing and dying, growing and dying. 

When we think of the natural world around us, we often think of its marvelous beauties — sweeping summer sunsets, moss-covered rocks at the base of ever-flowing waterfalls, or the “golden” Fibonacci spiral that appears in the nautilus shell, the tiny florets of a head of cauliflower, and even in the family tree of honeybees. But, in our often insulated contemporary lives, we sometimes forget that the natural world cycles around death. Perhaps we think first of the beauty in the natural world because we live with the memory of Eden in us. Perhaps it goes before us like a mirage, the hope of the weary traveler, the one nearest to death. But our love for our sickened world is not a mere longing for what was, or an empty hope that evaporates as soon as we approach. The beauty that remains in our fallen world is evidence of God’s love for the world He made and God’s love for the creatures that He made to care for it. 

When we look at the cross, we see the inverse of Desolación and Infliction. Rather than something lovely that bears the title of something sinister or broken, we see something gruesome and terrible, but it is called Love. The Christ bears violence to bring Peace. Our Jesus is marked with death, but offers us Life. We will again see our world with our own eyes and call it Paradise. 

Serpent Tree Artwork:

Artist Statement:

The Serpent Tree explores fragility and femininity and its relation to the concept of eternity through ceramics, connecting my artwork made in a post-modern context to the rich and ancient history of clay. The idea for this body of work comes from the story of the Garden of Eden and investigates the frailty of the body and the fallibility of man. Referencing nature as well as the body, these sculptures are about birth, growth and temptation. At first glance, the forms seem to be living and innocent, but upon closer inspection they can appear slightly sinister and suggestive. It is this play between innocence and experience that forms the basis of my work.

Artist Bio:

Allison Luce explores the ephemeral nature of existence and the mystery of eternity through her ceramic sculptures and monoprints. Luce graduated with dual BFA degrees in Painting and Art History from Ohio University and her MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina where she is a studio artist and a Realtor. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally and her work is included in private and corporate collections.

She has been a Resident Artist at the International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark, the Zentrum für Keramik-Berlin in Germany, and the Medalta International Artists in Residence in Canada. She has been an Affiliate Artist at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation and a Visiting Artist at Baltimore Clayworks. In 2014, she was a Resident Artist at The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences where she was awarded The Antinori Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. She was a Resident Artist at the GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art and the Noble and Greenough School in Massachusetts in 2015.

She served as Guest Faculty for Gordon College’s study abroad program in Orvieto, Italy in 2016 and 2017. Her artwork was on display on a billboard on 1-77 North in Charlotte as part of the Art Pop 2016 program. She has participated in the American Craft Council shows in Atlanta, Georgia and served on the Board of Directors of Christians in the Visual Arts. She completed a fifty-sculpture commission for the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte as a participant in their Community Supported Art program. She also received two Regional Artist Project Grants from the ASC to purchase a kiln and a slab roller for her home studio. 

From the Show: