Binding all into one whole

"My paintings are not concerned with the surface appearance of people or things but try to express something of the fundamental spiritual reality behind this surface appearance. I try to express in visible form the oneness and unity of this invisible power, binding all things into one whole. I try to express something of the universal and timeless truths behind the stories of the Bible.”

For John Reilly the unseen reality manifests itself both through pattern - “the oneness and unity of this invisible power, binding all things into one whole” - and through story - “the universal and timeless truths behind the stories of the Bible”.

Using lessons learnt from Orphism and Rayonism, Reilly constructs a pattern of rippling rays emanating from a central source of light. Within this structure he sets objects and figures composed of abstract shapes and colours that are indicative of their spiritual qualities. A picture may include, for example, a rock-like formation, an animal, a human figure and a plant shape held together, underpinned, in eternal circulation by the central point, which some may see as a pictorial device structuring a work of beauty and others as symbolic of God. In Universal Power - The Fourth Day of Creation we are shown a snapshot of creation, of the first reconciliation of shape and form. As Reilly's abstract shapes spiral out from the central point they coalesce into those same fundamental, elemental shapes of bird, plant and human life.

Reilly has made a profound use of the circle in his work in order to depict the wholeness that he finds in the world and life that God has created. His technique of colour fragments emanating from a central source enables him to suggest that his archetypal images of creation and the landscape are both, filled with the emanating rays and linked by them into a unified circle. His paintings therefore suggest the way in which we are linked both by being the creation of God and by being indwelt by his spirit.

A similar approach can be seen in the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Cecil Collins where movement, of brush stokes, line, dots, and dashes, indicate a sense of force that informs both the natural world and human beings. Van Gogh describes this as expressing "that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolise".

Such paintings recreate afresh, in modern styles, aspects of Celtic Christian thought. These artists have found a means of applying the Celtic image of the circle, with its message of a perfect wholeness, through modern fragmentary art techniques.

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