Jo Going’s solo exhibit, “Reliquary,” opens June 27 at the Pratt Museum. In her show, Going said she asks the question, “How does one define the sacred, approach the mysterium tremendum, and place into a historical and comparative context the human impulse to understand and experience the spiritual?”

The idea for creating art using bones came about decades ago when she saw a caribou skeleton on the tundra.

“A mighty wind blew through, carrying with it a scent of the soul of existence,” Going writes in her artist’s statement. “I realized then that bones carry the spirit of the animals, a lasting essence of presence, that they are relics, holy and venerable.”

The idea was further developed when she went to Italy as a visiting artist and saw reliquaries and altars in ancient churches.

“Once in Assisi, a truly sacred city, when standing beside a golden glass reliquary, my long considered desire to create a bone/art installation melded with the specific iconographic form before me,” she said. “Thus ‘Reliquary’ was born.”