"The idea of the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorber is to make an artwork that offers up a simple spiritual solution to the complicated, scary problems of our world.” - Rudy Shepherd.


LatchKey Gallery and artist Rudy Shepherd proudly invite you to, Calling All Gods a solo exhibition substituting as center for healing and nourishment for both the creator, and visitor. Calling All Gods will be on view at 323 Canal Street from September 10 through October 16, 2020. 

In an attempt to counter the tragedies, and conflicts, that pervade our society, Shepherd employs art as a healing mechanism creating objects and paintings with the power to heal personal and social ills and to awaken consciousness. Influenced by various movements, Shepherd art conjures the work of Sun Ra, Jack Whitten and Josef Beuys. Outlining the gallery are the artist’s Holy Mountain Series, a collection of paintings honoring mountains from around the world beheld as sacred to various cultures, faiths and traditions. 

At the center of the exhibition, a series of Black Rock Negative Energy Absorbers used to extract negative energy in the form of prejudice, racism, or even quotidian disdain – help bring harmony to life. Based on termite mounds found in Africa, Australia and South America, each sculpture has metaphysical properties for stability, peace, calm, balance, courage and inner strength. Accompanying the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorbers are Shepherd’s Healing Devices, ceremonial-like ceramic sculptures key to the eradication of the world’s negative energy. 

For our Canal Street Window Series, Shepherd’s video features the character he calls The Healer born out of the Black Rock Negative Energy Absorber sculptures. The Healer —a shadowy figure inhabiting the interstices of good and evil, public and private, seen and unseen moves through the landscape, barely visible. Neither fully engaged nor detached, The Healer leads us to contemplate liminal spaces and the idea of negative energy being transmitted throughout the world. 

The totality of Shepherd’s work embodies didactic tokens of larger spiritual and sociopolitical programs acting as nourishment and healing for their creator, and the viewer. His practice is multi-faceted, incorporating drawings, installations, performances, into a unique body of work which promotes a mutable kind of art that encourages individual and social transformation.

Calling All Gods

Take 3D Tour