Helen Lavelle’s “Humanity & Divinity” Exhibit

Helen Lavelle’s “Humanity & Divinity” art exhibition is back by popular demand and now showing at The Gallery of Scranton following its successful debut at La MaMa Galleria in New York City. See the exhibit for the first time in Scranton during a First Friday opening reception on Friday, June 2, from 5-9 p.m.

The Scranton exhibition gives those who were unable to attend the show in New York in January and February the chance to experience this powerful display.

A nationally recognized leader in the advertising industry, Ms. Lavelle’s drawings and paintings explore the artist’s personal journey through pain and vulnerability to resilience and grace.

Acknowledging that loss of life, the pandemic, political climate, racial hatred, war and economic uncertainty have given rise to unprecedented and unbearable pain, Ms. Lavelle’s work puts it center stage. But she does not stop there.

The exhibit, which includes both figurative and landscape pieces, is designed to remind viewers that the path from humanity to divinity lies in a personal connection to nature. “Nature is our greatest teacher,” Lavelle states. “Life and death, love and loss, pain and promise…the opportunity to transform in the face of tragedy, to recover (as does nature) is cellular.”

For Lavelle, painting is a spiritual process. Landscapes created in Ireland while experiencing extreme grief and sorrow express both heaviness and connection to universal energy.

As to her figurative work, Lavelle explains, “Connecting on a deeper level with nature and God
allowed me to portray moments of human vulnerability that are real, raw and honest. I can barely look at them myself.”

Lavelle has had more than her fair share of grief, having lost multiple friends and members of her own
family to addiction, to AIDs, and to the inability for many to move forward in life. She knows that art
heals, brings forth light, even in the deepest darkness.

An advocate for the arts in every genre, she understands that the arts help move people through life’s
circumstances. Her hope is that through this exhibition, people will see something in themselves that is about transformation.