Paradise lost and regained

Norman Adams aimed at being a unifier in his art. "For me, art is about acceptance," he said, "synthesis is more important than analysis". He said that he was "inspired by almost everything - Nature, other artists (mostly old masters) - music, literature, religion" and grew up "beginning to associate art and religion and political thinking as one great thing that had to be dealt with as a whole." He came to view himself as a composer orchestrating forms and colours to create beauty in and out of chaos.

Heightened natural forms and bright passionate colour characterised Adams' work and were, for him, a realisation of Paradise in the idea of 'The Garden'. However the Garden, in Christian belief, is a place from which human beings have been expelled. Adams' painting of the expulsion Where are we going? - which he described as "an angry picture, the harmony fractured, emotions ambiguous, message inconclusive, speculative" - positions a human being precariously between heaven and hell. It is essentially this, the pilgrimage from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained that Adams paints and which provides a unifying metaphor linking acts of suffering and injustice - the plight of the Iraqui Kurds, the mental torture of electrocution - to the realisation of Paradise. It characterised his work from the Pilgrims Progress murals for St Anselm's, Kennington (1971) to his masterpiece, the Stations of the Cross for St Mary's, Manchester (1995). Here, the Way of the Cross is a journey from death to life where it is "necessary to feel really close to Christ, in a one-to-one relationship".

Adams explained, in his notes on A New Heaven and Earth, the way in which this coming together of suffering and salvation is achieved within a specific painting: "The lower panel depicts The Slough of Despond in which human beings and beasts struggle through the bog. The central panel depicts the great mass of people, displaced like refugees, some of them sheltering in improvised tent-like structures: and in one a nativity is taking place. This painting was partially inspired by recent political happenings, beginning with the plight of the Iraqui Kurds. At the top of this panel, the heavens are seen to be opening, with a glimpse of better things to come. The great display of colourful Angels leads into the upper panel, which is all Angels (rather insect-like and developing from butterflies). The 'open-envelope' shape of the work provides an upward thrust to heaven: the two side panels (depicting the Birth of Adam and Eve, and the Angel of the Resurrection), hold the painting together like two embracing arms."

Adams studied at Harrow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, exhibited widely in the UK since 1950, and was elected a Royal Acedemician in 1972. His work features in the current Birthday exhibition at the Castlegate House Gallery in Cumbria while a retrospective of his work will be held the Northumbria University Gallery from 15 September to 2 November 2007.