Jon Bunge: Presence

Currently on display at the Bonsack Gallery is Jon Bunge’s Presence, an immersive installation in which the gallery is transformed with black fabric covering the walls, windows and entrance, enabling viewers to concentrate on shadows cast from nearly two dozen suspended sculptures made from branches. Growing up in University City near Forest Park, Bunge was surrounded and influenced by the park landscape, particularly its trees. Decades later, tree branches and branch-like patterns have become a recurring theme in his work, which focuses on line and form and is often abstract. “Instead of trying to represent something I’m seeing in the world, I’m following my intuition to create something from my imagination,” he says. “In making art in this way, I feel connected to my spirituality, which also involves the intuitive, the mysterious and the out-of-the-ordinary.”

Bunge earned his master’s degree in Fine Arts from the City College of New York in 2015 after a previous career in social work, and also holds a master’s degree in divinity from Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. He has shown his artwork in numerous galleries, art fairs and other venues and maintains a studio in Brooklyn. View his work on his website, jonbunge.com. Presence runs through November 19.

The Bonsack Gallery is a not-for-profit educational gallery on the campus of John Burroughs School. Regular gallery hours are 8 am to 6:30 pm, Monday through Friday.