Picture in Focus: Exodus: Journeys of Liberation

January 23, 2022

Picture in Focus: Exodus: Journeys of Liberation

Martin Luther King Jr. appears again in this week's featured artwork from Mississippi Folk Artist Carl Dixon alongside Barak Obama and Rosa Parks in homage to their roles in advancing the civil rights of African Americans in a work commissioned from Dixon in 2018 for a Lenten exhibition on the theme, Exodus: Journeys of Liberation. The three-part painting on carved wood panel shows Christ arising from the tomb in the central scene iof the panel in the ultimate journey of liberation from death to new life. To the left Moses leads the Children of Israel through the Red Sea, which has miraculously parted to allow their escape from bondage in Egypt. In a parallel image to the right, Harriet Tubman, nicknamed “Moses,” leads African-Americans out of slavery on the Underground Railroad. (John Kohan)