The Making of the Uncommon Mission Series
In the summer of 1997, Father Jerome Tupa drove nearly seven hundred miles over forty days in his quest to paint each of the twenty-one California missions. He started in Sonoma at Mission Solano and completed his trip at San Diego de Alcala, spending about two and a half days per site. On average, Tupa painted or drew about nine works per site using watercolors, pen, and ink.

"This was an exhausting trip because I felt a lot of pressure on myself to perform at each site and to come away with some quality work" Tupa recalls. "Yet despite the effort involved, the richness of the country of California and the depth of experiences at each of the Missions provided a pilgrimage of renewal."

Upon returning to his studio at Saint John's Abbey and University, with spirit and energy renewed, Tupa began work on the twenty-one oil paintings, completing the project eight months later, in the spring of 1998.

About the Artist.
The seeds of Jerome Tupa's future as an artist were planted when he enrolled in an art appreciation class taught by Douglas Kinsey at the University of North Dakota. Tupa recalls being impressed by a painting by Kinsey: "I hungered for a similar creative freedom." In 1963, Tupa took his vows as a monk in the Order of Saint Benedict at Saint John's Abbey. He earned a B.A. in French with a minor in art from Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota (1968); his Ph.D. in French at the Sorbonne, Paris (1976); and his master of divinity degree from Saint John's University (1982).

While studying in France in the early 1970s, Tupa resumed drawing and painting. Because he was spending a lot of time in his room writing, he began painting and drawing the familiar items that surrounded him: tables, chairs, and windows. These works were exhibited in 1974 at the Librairie Saint Severin, Paris.

In 1976, Tupa returned to Saint John's University to teach. While director of the university's French studies program in Aix-en-Provence, the spectacular region of France that inspired the painter, Paul Cézanne, Tupa created and exhibited his first landscapes. In the years since, he has produced a large body of work, often influenced by his travels abroad. His paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe.

Style and Technique.
Over the course of his artistic career, Father Tupa's paintings have moved freely between abstraction and representation. He believes that abstraction and realism are different paths to the same end. Tupa is a series painter who likes to explore related ideas in a number of paintings.

Clearly evident in the Uncommon Mission series is Tupa's pure and forceful use of color, line, shape, and texture. While representational in many respects, the paintings present each Mission altered in some way: flattened, viewed inside out, with added elements, or reduced to essential shapes and bold blocks of color.

Compare the paintings Cloister and Bell Tower and Loving Towers with the other oils in the exhibition. These are the only two paintings in the exhibition in which Tupa used wax as a painting medium. This technique gives the surfaces of these paintings an impasto, or thickly layered, look.

Several of the oils in the exhibition include elements that, although not visible at the Mission itself, were added to the painting by Tupa because he felt they were needed. Compare, for example, the actual Mission photographs to the paintings.

Loving Towers photo and Loving Towers painting.
Bent Tower photo and Bent Tower painting
Cloister Walk photo and Cloister Walk painting

Tupa's Artistic Explorations
Through his paintings Tupa explores the world around him and searches for visual ways to address spiritual ideas in a contemporary world. During a sabbatical year in Rome (1987-88), he painted a series of representational paintings about relationships entitled Feu d'artifice (Fireworks). For centuries images of dance in Christian art have symbolized not only relationships between humans but also relationships with God. Tupa explains, "Humans exist theologically, or experience their being, through a relationship in which each is enveloped by love, be it love of God or love of fellow humans."

After Tupa's return to the United States, series after series followed, including Sentinels of Fire, The Goddess Series, and the Memorare Series. Through each of these series-and through the use of vibrant color, holy symbols, and iconic shapes - he explored humankind's relationship with God and the healing power of the divine.

Tupa explains: "Painting for me is part of the way of finding a balance between the ordered, sane, doctrinaire life of the monastery-where the underpinnings are actually liberating-and the need to express myself.Painting, like spirituality, is liberating. Both are expressions of one's distinct and deeper relationships with the works-and with God."