In a new work entitled One and All, Adam Belt reproduces every single page of the Bible in a vast grid. The words on each page are miniscule and impossible to read by eyesight alone, although they reveal themselves perfectly with the assistance of a magnifying glass. As viewers, we are faced with a conundrum. We can either press closely, straining to glimpse a passage while losing sight of the whole, or stand back and apprehend the entirety of the text without the possibility of reading it. Adopting either hermeneutic posture brings us closer to one truth but further from the other. If the clarity of revelation exists, it lies in the tension itself, suspended dynamically between the poles of particularity and totality. To be human, the work suggests, is to know one or all, the macrocosmic or microcosmic. To know both at once would be divine.
One and All provides us with a cipher for understanding Belt’s work more broadly. He is driven by the pursuit of enduring, esoteric questions. And yet he frames these investigations with elegant simplicity, anchored in a profound appreciation for the material world and the properties of human perception. In Merton, which at first glance looks like a simple cube, sustained attention reveals beguiling, counterintuitive refractions as light passes through layers of resin. Belt’s subtle optical experiments invite metaphysical reflection, drawing us into the contemplative realm of the eponymous mystic, Thomas Merton. In another piece, which takes the form of a geode, Belt cultures crystals from altar wine on a communion wafer. A transubstantiation occurs, though hardly the one imagined in Catholic doctrine, where wine and bread literally become the blood and body of Christ during Holy Communion. In Belt’s imagination (pace Aquinas), the very “accidents” of the Eucharist—the physical qualities we perceive—are themselves miraculous and strange. Much as he does with microscopic texts or refracted light, Belt takes us on a search for “real presence,” to borrow an Anglican phrase. Not distinct from the world as we perceive it, but within it. I asked him once whether the spiritual or the scientific comes first for him as he begins the creative process. “For me,” he replied, “it’s more that there is a space beyond, a space where there is no differentiation. That’s where the work begins.”
Adam Belt’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Quint Gallery in La Jolla, CA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Franklin Parrasch Gallery, NY; and RCM Galerie and Topographie de L’Art in Paris. An active member of the Episcopal Church, he lives in Carlsbad, California. Read more about Belt’s work in: Aaron Rosen’s book Spiritual Traces: Reflections and Conversations on Contemporary Art (Cascade, 2025).