Jim Julin’s piece “Shrine” is currently on view as part of the Permanent Collection exhibition, ‘Favorite Neighbor’.

Stamped into the metal on Jim Julin’s ‘Shrine’ is the epigraph, "Death revenges us against life, strips it of all its vanities and pretensions and converts it into what it really is: a few neat bones and a dreadful grimace.”

This quote is from Mexican poet Octavio Paz’s book ‘The Labyrinth of Solitude’, in which he considers the significance of solitude within Mexican identity. In this section, Paz discusses the simple totality of death and the way that it strips away the embellishments that add up to a sense of “life”. Although this may at first sound sinister, the poet Octavio Paz and artist Jim Julin both examine death not as something that destroys life, but as a force that invites into a quiet and sacred conversation about the magic and temporary nature of life. Julin borrows Paz’s words and illustrates them with “a few neat bones” of his own. With ‘Shrine’, Julin offers viewers a special place to consider death as more than just a curse, but as the unstoppable shadow of life slowly making peace with everything.

Jim Julin was an interdisciplinary Rockford artist and craftsman who carved wood, worked with metal, and used found materials including bones and hides in his work. Many of his pieces examine the delicate and eternal relationship that we as humans have to the natural world.

Galleries are open Thursday through Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Jim Julin (American, 1956 - 2012)

‘Shrine’, 1993

plywood, walnut, lead, animal bone, and aluminum powder

Gift of Marcia Miller

Collection of Rockford Art Museum