The changing monthly display by the artists' and craftspeople's group in the Foyer of the Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields for October is by Alice Bree. Each month a different member of the group or artists linked to it will show examples of their work, so do look regularly to see the changing display.
Alice writes:
‘I had always found abstraction in art difficult to understand. “How do people set about it,” I thought? I decided to attend a course in abstract drawing. The course was exciting, the teacher lively and positive. I was unprepared though for the influence it would have on me. I knew at a deep level as I painted the first painting “Jacob’s Ladder of Prayer” that it was a prayer.
A series emerged with a theme of the sea and the way the tide comes on to the beach in ever overlapping frothing arcs. In the poem “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, he sees the sea of faith ebbing to such a degree that it seems as if it will never return. That was then. I see an incoming tide flowing and ever in flux. Is that what is happening now - a revival? In these turbulent times, not just in Britain, but in the world I begin to wonder if, as in Romans 8 v 22 & 23 (translation from ‘The Message’ by Eugene Peterson): “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply the birth pangs. But it is not only around us, it’s within us, the Spirit of God is arousing us, within.”
At St Martin's we have the contemplative Nazareth Community and the outgoing HeartEdge Movement, and school children all over the world are leading us in protest against disrespect for our beautiful planet and denial of climate change. As I painted these abstracts, titles emerged from my prayer and study, ‘Meditation,’ ‘the Cloud of Unknowing,’ ‘the Psalms,’ ‘the Lord’s prayer.’ I ask myself can abstract art be a metaphor, a way in which we express spiritual experience, a pared down essence of faith?’.’
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen.
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