Borysewicz’s “Blessing,” a three-panel painting, will go on display at St. Augustine & St. Monica Church on the city’s lower east side, beginning with an Evening Prayer service at 6:30 p.m., followed by a reception.
Borysewicz grew up in the former St. Augustine Parish on the east side and Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in northwest Detroit. Feeling a call to the priesthood, he was a 1979 graduate of Sacred Heart Seminary College, Detroit, and went on to St. John’s Provincial Seminary in Plymouth Township, but left after deciding he wasn’t called to the priesthood.
Instead, he went to Boston, then Japan, and eventually to New York City, achieving acclaim along the way as an artist. He also teaches religious studies at St. Joseph College in Brooklyn.
“His work is unusual in that it is both religious and abstract. Religious painters tend to be representational, and very few abstract painters are working on religious themes,” said Fr. Daniel Trapp, pastor of St. Augustine & St. Monica Parish, who was at seminary with Borysewicz.
Speaking of his work, Borysewicz said, “All three panels speak of the relationship between our prayer lives and the religion in which we live and breathe.”
“Blessing” is the name for the overall work and also for the top panel, he said, while the side panel, named “Hive-Bell,” has a shape reminiscent of a bee hive or a church bell, with the image of a praying figure inside it.
The larger panel to the right, titled “Self Portrait,” has an image in the shape of an hour-glass, with two church doors placed like lungs — recalling what both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have said about the Church “breathing with two lungs,” referring to the Eastern and Western Churches, Borysewicz continued.
The overall effect is like a monstrance, he said.
The art installation will be in one of the church’s side chapels.
More information about Borysewicz and his art can be found at his website.
