Move over, traditional conceptions of Mormon art; there’s a new artist in town.

Last month a new exhibit opened at the Church History Museum, to run through October 9th (if you’re in Salt Lake for October Conference, then, you’ll be able to catch it). It’s an exciting exhibit, and I’ll try to tell why I loved it – be patient with me, please, because I don’t have the training or vocabulary for a professional review.

While others may have long been familiar with his work, many first were introduced to him at last year’s Mormon Arts Center festival in New York City, or, like me, through reports of that event. Reviews showed glimpses of scenes that were instantly recognizable in their subject matter, but which were very different from either the traditional realism of Mormondom’s “gospel art kit,” and different still from other contemporary Mormon artists with whom we’re becoming familiar.

Jorge Cocco Santangelo (b. 1936), an Argentine artist, with additional training in Spain and Mexico, has developed a style he calls “sacrocubism,” used throughout this exhibit to depict scenes from the life of Christ in the New Testament gospels. The “sacro” part of that label is easy to understand – these are scenes of especially sacred moments in the life of the Savior: calling his apostles, the Last Supper, at prayer in Gethsemane, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.

The “cubism” part refers to the mostly abstract style familiar through Picasso and his contemporaries, where what starts as a realistic scene is broken into flat abstract shapes, the shapes shifted from their original places into new positions, where, often, the viewer can see multiple perspectives in a single image: a human face, for instance, might be seen simultaneously in profile and from straight on.

Santangelo’s sacrocubism isn’t nearly as abstract as those 20th century works, though. Like them, the image is broken into flat geometric shapes, which, however, through the use of shading and the way those shapes are tilted still convey a sense of three-dimensional roundness. His faces, while simplified, remain fully human, bearing recognizable expressions and emotions. In Santangelo’s work, it’s almost like your view of the scene is through a glass that has been shattered, with the pieces still clinging together but tilted at angles so that light reflects from them in unexpected ways. What remains is recognizable, but different, with only the most crucial shapes visible through the cracks and splinters.

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This painting shows that “fractured glass” idea: “cracks” run from one edge of the picture to another, leading the eye from one character to another and somehow injecting a sense of movement in a static scene, with the resulting fragments tilted to reflect light at different angles and the figures reduced to their essential details.

Ironically, maybe, this degree of abstractness allows Santangelo to show aspects of a story that would not be visible in a more realistic style – and because those “invisible” aspects are made visible through the same technique as the rest of the painting, they feel just as solid, just as tangible as what the human eye could have seen. One of my favorite images, for that reason, is this one of Christ casting out the demons who then entered a flock of swine:

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The man from whom the demons have just been cast is still crouching at Jesus’s feet – his posture is as animal-like as if the artist had painted a hog there, yet he is also fully human. The cubism technique lets us see the dual nature of that moment with no cartoonishness, in as visible a way as we see any other part of the scene.

Likewise, the instant on the cross when Jesus “gave up the ghost,” as Matthew and Luke put it, appears as a duality – Christ’s body on the cross, his spirit beginning to ascend – in as visible a way as any scene might appear to the human eye.

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Another painting I especially liked is this one, of Christ ascending to heaven following his resurrection and the time he spent instructing his followers.

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Find the time, if you are in Salt Lake this summer, to visit the Museum and think about the images on display. It might change the way you see Mormon art, and the life of Christ, and even the world around you.

It changed the way I saw the world, if only for a moment … I noticed this pattern of light on the floor as I left the exhibit:

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