The Arts and Architecture Conservancy at Saint Peter’s presents Afterlife: Bodies by Michael Watson, on view in the Narthex Gallery at Saint Peter’s December 16, 2024 through February 27, 2025.

For artist Michael Watson, rice is a staple in both his work and upbringing. In his Filipino-American home, rice was one of the commonalities he shared with his relatives and ancestors halfway across the world. The subject of Watson’s rice works is one of dispersed organic matter, yet it remains grounded in real-world and spiritual applications as an integral part of sustenance, celebration, and mourning across cultures.

Watson explores the symbolism of this humble grain throughout much of his artistic practice. He posits that each person—the body and the soil, the corporeal and incorporeal—are inseparable and indistinguishable from one another. Rice allows the viewer to see the cyclical nature of nourishment, expansion, and dispersion; humans, too, return in death to nourish new life. Revealed is the interconnectedness shared with all living things, and the tending required to enrich those connections.