Can an artistic preoccupation with a subject matter be reduced to a troubling personal one?

Isn’t part of what distinguishes artists the way they transcend their personal preoccupations by making aesthetic order out of the inner disorder that is our common human lot?

How does one read their own subjectivity and how does that drive and motivate what one does?

How can representations of ourselves complicate how we see ourselves. Can one be over represented?

These and other questions will serve as prompts to generate community discussions at the latest Wickerham and Lomax exhibit, which opens tonight at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.

Malcolm Lomax and Daniel Wickerham, aka 2015 Sondheim prize winners as artistic duo Wickerham and Lomax, are known for pushing the boundaries of art and conversation through their collaborative work. They met as students at MICA and began producing work together in 2009.

In their newest installation, Channel Heal: The Writer’s Room, they visually depict the messiness of creative work and the thought processes behind it in an installation inside the Refections gallery at the Lewis, the final show to be held in the space under its Reflections name and mission to bring contemporary art to the Lewis. It runs from July 12 through Aug. 1.

Wall-to-wall murals line the installation—printed material, hand-drawn images, white boards, and other elements are used to depict indoor and outdoor spaces that evoke a fluid and open atmosphere—the kind of magical place where creative work happens.

The show hinges upon two Channel Heal events, open to the public, to stimulate conversation around four topics: transcendence, physicality, ego, and mysticism.

The duo invited people in the Baltimore community for each discussion.

“Everyone serves as a panel host,” Wickerham says.

“People are like prompts,” adds Lomax, who is also a poet.

They’re interested in how art and the creative process relate to healing, as they’ve seen creatives navigating these four areas to improve their lives. Through the roundtable discussions, they want to externalize some of the thoughts and feelings that have resulted from conflict and trauma.