issue 6
// art
Title: Midnight Mass America // Artist: Albert John Belmont
about the piece
| 2026, oil on canvas, 20×30 “Midnight Mass America” explores the presence of two authorities, government and religious, and asks the viewer to notice their first gut reaction. On the left are the flashing lights of law enforcement. On the right, a church with its doors open. Is this midnight mass, police guiding people safely inside? Or does mass signal violence and response? Are agents unjustly searching for someone seeking refuge, or are the police there because of harm within the church itself? The cross of the church is echoed in the composition by the crossing geometry of police lights and the walkway leading to the rectory building. I know what the scene means to me, but while painting it that meaning shifted as I broke it down and rebuilt it. |
about the artist // Albert John Belmont
| Albert John Belmont is a New England-born, contemporary neo-cubist artist based in New Hampshire. Working since the mid-’90s, his art focuses on the deconstruction and reconstruction of subjects to convey form and feeling through simplicity. He developed this approach while studying art in Boston, exploring abstraction, cubism, expressionism, color, and line. Since 2020, his reconstructivist neo-cubist work has delved into autobiographical explorations of space, experience, and memory. He has exhibited in several states and cities over the course of his career, most recently in New York, Boston, Chicago, and throughout New England. |
Instagram: @belmont_aj
Website
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