St John the Baptist Hoxton

Completed in 1826, St John the Baptist Hoxton is a Georgian church in the Classical style and is the only one built to the design of Francis Edwards, Sir John Soane's foremost pupil. The building is a large example of a Commissioners' church, retaining its floor plan intact as well as its galleries and its décor is notable, particularly for its spectacular painted ceiling. It was executed by the prominent architect Joseph Arthur Reeve in the early 20th century.

The urban landscape has been a source of fascination, inspiration and a recurring theme throughout the work of Caroline Nina Phillips. She contemplates what can be seen and the possibilities of what remains unseen. Phillips has loaned the church two of her paintings which have been installed on the east wall of the church. ‘Liminality’ evokes a light drawing us through the darkness of an urban landscape - making us think perhaps of the kingdom of God and the dawning brightness of Christ dispelling all darkness. ‘Occupy’, depicts St Paul’s Cathedral, but you can also make out the murky dome tents of the Occupy protest of 2011 - reminding us of the poor, the marginalised, and that Christ also ‘became flesh and pitched his tent among us’.

After two years studying with men from the Dorset limestone quarries, Mike Chapman opened his own studio in the summer of 1996 and in 2004 held his first solo exhibition at St Martins-in-the-Fields. His work is now in the collections of a number of institutions throughout the UK and in private collections both here and in America. His memorial at St John's Hoxton, located in the Garden of Remembrance, is a hand drawn monolith, carved in an enormous Welsh slate, weighing over a tonne. It marks the site where ashes are placed in the churchyard.

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Mumford and Sons - The Wolf.

Incarnation: Private View and Exhibition

I will be speaking about commission4mission at the launch of the organisation in South London during the Private View for our Christmas exhibition entitled 'Incarnation' on Monday 3rd December from 6.30 - 9.30pm at Wimbledon Library Gallery, 1st floor, Wimbledon Library, Wimbledon Hill Road, London SW19 7NB.

“Incarnation” features work by Harvey Bradley, Colin Burns, Christopher Clack, Ally Clarke, Valerie Dean, Elizabeth Duncan-Meyer, Jonathan Evens, Ken James, Mark Lewis, Sarah Ollerenshaw, Caroline Phillips, Caroline Richardson, Janet Roberts, Francesca Ross, Henry Shelton, Sergiy Shkanov, Joy Rousell Stone and Peter Webb.

The exhibition provides the first opportunity to see work by our newest member Caroline Phillips, as well as linking us up with Sarah Ollerenshaw who has exhibited with us previously.

The exhibition opening times are 4 - 8 December, 9.30am-7.00pm (2pm on Saturday) with access through the Library. A Second Private View will be held on Tuesday 4 December from 6.30 - 9.30pm. On Monday and Tuesday evenings from 7pm, the Gallery can be reached via a side entrance in Compton Road.

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The Call - Scene Beyond Dreams.

Caroline Nina Phillips: Attentiveness to the seen and unseen

Caroline Nina Phillips is an artist who is attentive to obscure and overlooked spaces seeing the geometry of pattern inherent in urban construction and the interplay of light and dark within. These large works are paintings into which one feels one could walk to encounter a world that is both original whilst also being profoundly ordinary:

‘Focusing on less glamorous sections of the city Caroline Nina chooses to paint the more obscure sights and spaces she finds whilst peering through gaps and alleyways into construction sites; gnarled stairwells and decaying, deteriorating buildings.

For Caroline Nina, these real, raw unpolished spaces are impressive finds – neither unpleasant nor threatening but intriguing, charismatic, authentic parts of our world.’

Paintings which work derive from the attentiveness and insight of the artist and reward the attentiveness and contemplation of the viewer. These are such paintings. Their images have been worked and reworked in order to find and to build images which reward our contemplation:

‘Oils are scraped, layered, removed; smeared, worked and reworked again and again- indicative in many ways of the process of building; of time passing; of ageing; deterioration; breaking down and of revival; reconstruction; of turning something old; damaged or worn, into something new.’

In addition to her attention to the found environment, Phillips is also keen to evoke the beyond which is unseen in her images - the sense that there is more around the corner or down the stairwell. Her use of light is often used to draw our sight towards the point at which vision ends and intuition begins:

‘Openings entice as barriers block. Stairwells guide the viewer’s gaze from one implied space to another – beyond the physical boundary of the painting.

Attracted to specific spaces that offer this potential for imagining; Caroline Nina contemplates what can be seen and the possibilities of what remains unseen. Features fascinate and draw her in with their depth and intensity.’

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Bill Fay - City Of Dreams.