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Monday 28 October 2019

'Creation' exhibition: Holy Trinity Sloane Square
























Images of AI and genetic engineering are not among those usually found in churches. Hayley Bowen’s ‘Man creating man in the guise of healing’ is a triptych illustrating transhumanism in relation to medicine and its link to covert eugenics, exsoskeletal and organ manipulation, cybernetics and eventually new humanoid creation. The work is currently at Holy Trinity Sloane Square. The artist asks,’ Is this interfering with God’s plans, or do we not understand his plans?’

The triptych, she says, is: ‘simply a graphic interpretation of the issues we face when we interfere with natural evolution. The laws of nature should naturally de-populate, with human development accelerating, but now we know that we are becoming sicker and weaker, as we are nearing overpopulation. Our existence does not make sense, unless we are working to an end or exist for a higher power, prisoners of our physical body.’

‘Creation’ is a group show by commission4mission artists that was first at All Hallows by the Tower and now is at Holy Trinity Sloane Square. The group was formed to help revive and encourage the practice of commissioning and placing works of contemporary art in churches and other public places. For this exhibition a mix of abstract and representational imagery has been created, utilising assemblage, ceramics, digital illustration, drawing, painting, puppetry and sculpture.

Mark Lewis, commission4mission’s Chair, says: ‘We have encouraged our artists to reflect broadly on the theme and 25 artists have responded with imagery that ranges from depictions of the Genesis Creation stories to Christ’s birth and our recreation through redemption, by way of flower studies, the creation of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance, and future creation using AI and genetic engineering.’

As with Bowen, David Millidge is also unafraid to grapple with weighty themes, in his case violence and death. His fragmented pots utilise images from The Church of Spilled Blood in St Petersburg, the creation of a memorial to the assassinated Emperor Alexander II. Millidge’s new ceramic sculpture ‘Gassed’ also deals in death being inspired by a painting of the same name by John Singer Sargent which hangs in the National War Museum. ‘Gassed’ is ultimately about the creation of the poppy logo as a symbol of rebirth and remembrance.

Michael Garaway is a mixed media artist who finds continual inspiration in urban landscape and new technologies to inform and produce his atmospheric and semi abstract work. He says, ‘I see creation as an on-going interactive process, which involves exploring and attempting to understand ways of ordering the world, and our views of the world.’ His work orders the appearances of specific locations with the use of grid and pattern. Divisions and multiples of a 12mm grid are used to develop and fix compositions, and Celtic step and knot patterns are incorporated in some of the work, linking to a much earlier Christian practice of illumination.

Clorinda Goodman’s ‘Ancilla Domini’ is a resin cast, a hexagonal representation of the Biblical moment when Eve disobeyed God’s command not to touch the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which led, not only to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, but the growth of the human race and expansion of God’s creation through the world. Thus Eve, as well as the Virgin Mary, is seen as the ‘Handmaid of the Lord’ in fulfilling God’s purposes for his creation.

‘Christ & Cephas’ by John Gentry is a work about forgiveness, restoration and redemption. In John 21 we read of Peter being restored, forgiven, and, commissioned. In John’s image the triangle on the left of Christ is both Trinity and Fire. The pillar in the centre is the Pillar of Fire by night. Christ’s wounded hand is upon Cephas’ shoulder. Peter holds in his hand a net. In the net are fish, but also tin cans, plastic, glass bottles. The re-creation has been made possible by the redeeming work of Christ who commissions his body to proclaim and live Gospel. The rubbish is a type of sin. What a mess! “Who shall deliver us…?” Alleluia, says John, for saving grace!

Sculptor Deborah Harrison, in ‘Born Again’, gives us a body emerging from an egg, while Italian artists Laura Grenci and Maurizio Galia focus on water and music respectively as sources of creation.

Lewis Braswell, Mary Flitcroft and Jacqui Parkinson are exhibiting with commission4mission for the first time. Lewis Braswell sees creativity as mimicry of the acts of the Creator. Ultimately, he wants to remind the viewer of his or her relationship in the divine dialogue among God and people and to lead that viewer into deliberate conversation. Mary Flitcroft is a ceramic artist whose work is contemplative and abstract. She currently works with porcelain paper clay in very thin, translucent sheets which she folds, tears, cuts, marks and stains with colours. Her work is contemplative and abstract. Jacqui Parkinson produces artwork with textiles – usually on a large scale – for public buildings and her work has regularly toured cathedrals. Jacqui uses a powerful graphic instinct together with the intimacy of the hand-stitched line to create work that feels highly spontaneous, very lively, moving and thoroughly engaging. Her work is designed to catch the eye and challenge the mind.

‘Creation’, a group show by commission4mission artists at Holy Trinity Sloane Square from Tuesday 29 October to Saturday 9 November 2019. The exhibition can be viewed from 10.00am to 4.00pm.

Saturday 26 October 2019

Windows on the world (519)


Johannesburg, 2019

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Omar ft Carleen Anderson - Who Chooses The Seasons. 


Monday 21 October 2019

Reflections on the HeartEdge conference

Scott Rennie and Philip Dawson have offered thoughtful and affirming reflections on the recent HeartEdge conference in Edinburgh. See and hear their reflections at:
Scott writes:

'I had the privilege of being a speaker at the #HeartEdge Annual Conference in Edinburgh. It was a marvelous occasion which brought together leaders from the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, and other British and European Protestant Churches ... We @QueensCross joined the ecumenical #HeartEdge movement (founded by our friends at St Martin in the Fields in London @SMITF) because we share with them the belief in the renewal of the Church in our increasingly secular society, and believe that our churches to be at the heart of community life also need to find themselves on the edge.

The Network is based on 4 C’s - Compassion, Congregation, Commerce and Culture, as a means for achieving that renewal. We @QueensCross are in different ways trying to renew our life and witness through all of these pathways, and have found the encouragment of journeying with others on these paths of immense encouragement and support.

Most of all it is wonderful to work and share ecumenically with others committed to the same vision of church as we are.'

Philip writes:

In his introduction to the delegates pack for the 2019 HeartEdge Conference, Sam Wells wrote: “HeartEdge believes the Spirit is alive and working both within and beyond the church, and is especially concerned to focus on the beyond.”

Day Two of the conference sought to continue that trajectory; the first “beyond” of concern to us today being the world of finance and commerce. During Day One, I felt awash with wisdom flowing from those ‘in’ the church. Today, I felt there were times when the tide could turn the other way - when the conference might have usefully heard more from those outside. Such as the 5.5 million “micro enterprises” which make up over 96% of businesses registered in the UK today. Even if each is owned and run by just one person (people like me), that accounts for 8% of the population. Winnie Varghese said at the opening of the conference, that we “do theology with our lives.” If that is so, I think we have a lot to learn from their lives - which happen to be greater in number than those who attend church on a Sunday ...

I heard a lot of words during my first visit to Edinburgh. Some of the many that will stay with me include a quote from the Scottish poet Edwin Muir, which Peter Sutton, Minister of St Cuthbert’s Church read to me after I attended an excellent ‘Soul Space’ service there; words which perhaps serve as a warning about forgetting The Word;

“The Word made flesh here is made word again
A word made word in flourish and arrogant crook.”

October 2nd & 3rd was an excellent, stretching, affirming and challenging two days. Thank you to all involved in organising the 2019 HeartEdge Conference.'

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Voces8 - The Deer's Cry.

Veronica von Degenfeld: Giving Thanks



I was fortunate to see Giving Thanks: The Visionary Paintings of Veronica von Degenfeld at St Mary Le Strand on its penultimate day and to meet the artist together with those involved in bringing the exhibition to the UK. As an international painter and stained-glass designer von Degenfeld has exhibited in Rome, Paris, Salzburg, and New York, but this was the first time her work has been shown in London. 

She received her training as an artist and restorer by interning in studios of artists in various European countries and by studying at the Art Academy in Munich. Her semi-abstract paintings bring joy and colour primarily because, as she has said, 'painting means to me experiencing God’s generosity.'

Philippe Lejeune has written that: 

'Veronica seeks beauty as one seeks God, `feeling her way along´. She feels with the ultramarine and discovers that it is heaven etched out between the leaves.

From here, this painter invents an artificial order of things in which she both creates the rules and is keen to submit herself to them. She knows well that her created order is a reflection of her own being and that this is how she honours her Creator. She chooses as her model the laws of observation and concludes with the necessity of cause and effect. By inventing her own rules she submits herself to her Creator´s order.

The more free the artist is, the more faithful she is - realism in painting is like quotations in a text - one must choose either to represent, or to invent a way that traces the order things. The talent in all this can be compared to the foreign body that provokes that marvelous nugget within a mollusk, a pearl. For the artist, talent is this fruitful suffering, never to be satisfied with what the eye perceives.

While we are making comparisons, Veronica´s painting reminds me of Messiaen´s music. Bird songs melt into the noble artistry of the instruments so that the music does not disturb the prayer of the listener.'

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Bob Marley - Thank You Lord.

Sunday 20 October 2019

CTiW Newsletter & Brexit Prayer Vigil


The latest Churches Together in Westminster (CTiW) Newsletter No. 17 (Autumn 2019) is now available by clicking here.

A CTiW Prayer Vigil is to be held in the Desmond Tutu Room at St Martin-in-the-Fields from 6.30 – 9.30pm on Thursday, 31 October.

Our intent is to pray into the current political situation on the day when the Government say we will be leaving the EU. Our prayers will not be politically aligned but instead will seek areas of common ground between the remainers and leavers, such as the unity of our nation and good relations with the EU whether we leave or remain.

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Manchester Orchestra - I've Got Friends.

Saturday 19 October 2019

Thinking Differently About God: Neurodiversity, Faith and Church 2












Day 2 of the 'Thinking Differently About God: Neurodiversity, Faith and Church' weekend at St Martin-in-the-Fields in partnership with Inclusive Church began with a Eucharist. This service continued the reflections begun on Day 1 with input from conference participants, including Krysia Waldock and Ann Memmott, plus a liturgy, parts of which were written by the Disability Advisory Group at St Martin's.

I said that we are able to think differently about God because the Trinity is diverse, as is the world that God created, and because the Bible contains a huge variety of different images of and names for God. These create the space in which those who are neurodiverse share their perceptions of God to the benefit of us all. Krysia Waldock's introduction to neurodiversity and the experience of neurodiverse people in church can be read here, while Ann Memmott's excellent address can be heard here.

Our afternoon programme used insights from the creative Arts to explore the weekend's themes. Phillip Hickman said that as a “Visual Theologian”, his aim is to minster to the effectiveness of the Christian Contemplative practice of photography and thus come to understand a deeper realisation of the divine nature of God. His work as a photographer helps him question his own identity and its implication to the wider world.

We also watched Me, My Mouth and I, a film which follows Jess Thom as she stages a neuro-diverse version of Samuel Beckett’s short play Not I. Jess is co-founder of Touretteshero and may or may not lead a secret double life as a superhero. Artist, playworker, and expert fundraiser, Jess currently helps coordinate a large play project in South London. Jess has had tics since she was a child but wasn’t diagnosed with Tourettes until she was in her twenties. With some encouragement from her friends, Jess decided to turn her tics into a source of imaginative creativity and the Touretteshero project was born.

Fiona MacMillan then discussed the themes of the film with Jess exploring what the arts have to teach the church regarding diversity, acceptance and belonging. In particular, Touretteshero are pioneering work creating relaxed spaces where all can belong. Relaxed performances offer a warm welcome to people who find it difficult to follow the usual conventions of theatre behaviour.

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The Cranberries - Linger.

Windows on the world (518)



London, 2019

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Wednesday 16 October 2019

Private View: Creation exhibition














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Moby - God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters.