Having already been to the PV for Peter Howson's Salvation exhibition and writing my review for Seen and Unseen, it was great to return this evening for the launch of STEPS: the Spiritual Journey of Peter Howson by John Miller.
They met when Howson was part of a group exploring the 'meaning of life', and they became good friends. Over the next 20 years the two had many conversations and Miller's book contains the story of Peter's life and the deeply felt and electrifying insights revealed in his paintings. Having been, for over thirty years, a minister in a working class community shaped by poverty and violence but redeemed by acts of love, Miller is uniquely placed to understand Howson's conflicts, and to articulate his ambitions, artistic and religious.
Salvation presents a new series of interconnected oil paintings on gesso panels, these works chronicle the life of Christ as depicted in the Gospels, through a sequence of intensely personal encounters, marking one of the artist’s most sustained examinations of biblical narrative to date.In my review of Salvation I wrote:
'these paintings and drawings are deeply relational depictions of the life of Christ. In ‘You must be born again’, Jesus looks at Nicodemus with eyes filled with deep love and infinite longing. He looks at Judas askance and quizzical, as Judas turns to kiss him on the cheek (‘The Kiss of Judas’). The up-close focus on two heads filling the picture frame that is a feature of several scenes emphasises the relationship between Jesus and another, always loving, even when angry, as is the case in ‘Hypocrites!’.'
My interview with Howson can be read here, my review of his retrospective - here, my VCS exhibition including a Howson work - here, and reviews of earlier exhibitions here, and here.
'these paintings and drawings are deeply relational depictions of the life of Christ. In ‘You must be born again’, Jesus looks at Nicodemus with eyes filled with deep love and infinite longing. He looks at Judas askance and quizzical, as Judas turns to kiss him on the cheek (‘The Kiss of Judas’). The up-close focus on two heads filling the picture frame that is a feature of several scenes emphasises the relationship between Jesus and another, always loving, even when angry, as is the case in ‘Hypocrites!’.'
My interview with Howson can be read here, my review of his retrospective - here, my VCS exhibition including a Howson work - here, and reviews of earlier exhibitions here, and here.
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Deacon Blue - People Come First.
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