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The Mary and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chapel of Hope and Remembrance stands as a witness to the power of art, and HealthCare Chaplaincy's mission to heal and transform lives.
The work of a chaplain embodies both contemplation and action. It experiences joy and grief. It embraces darkness and light. The Mary and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chapel of Hope and Remembrance is a place that encourages integration and wholeness. Regularly, the multifaith staff of HealthCare Chaplaincy comes together to pray and find solace in a community of friends. Leaving one dimension and entering another, they find themselves transformed by the healing power of art, the commonality of shared experience, and an ever-deepening relationship with the divine. Some gather in this sanctuary to mark significant life passages with rituals, such as memorial services, weddings, anniversaries and baptisms. Others come to hear lectures pertaining to health and spirituality. On occasions when recitals are performed in the chapel, people nurture their spirit through music and song. In this sacred space, blessed by Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, individuals of every faith, or no faith, can find both sanctuary and haven.
Painter Eric Karpeles describes the vision behind the creation of the chapel: "Like a chaplain, the painter attempts to give meaning to a struggle between opposing forces, and to recognize that one's work is shaped as much from without as within. The challenge is to engage the imagination of the chapel visitor and encourage a transition to a contemplative state of being."
Eric Karpeles was born in New York City and enrolled in the Art Students League at the age of eleven. At fifteen, he lived as an exchange student with a Hindu family in India and this exposure to another world transformed him. He graduated from Haverford College with an honors degree in comparative literature and fine arts, received a diploma from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford, and earned a masters degree from The New School. His career has been anchored in studio painting. For more than twenty years he worked in a serene valley near Tyler Hill, Pennsylvania and currently maintains his studio in Northern California.
Karpeles has created monumental works both under personal motivation—executing, funding and installing the Sanctuary Project, a meditation space for the HIV/AIDS communities across the United States—and private commission—The Mary and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chapel of Hope and Remembrance, a permanent installation at HealthCare Chaplaincy in New York City. A recipient of numerous grants and awards for his painting, he has also written on aesthetics. He has recently published (2008) Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time.
Visit the Chapel
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