Interviews Update

Since my last Interview Update, I have had an interview published by International Times with Jacquiline Creswell, who has worked as a curator with a number of Cathedrals in England and in that time has commissioned, curated and installed more than 80 exhibitions:

'It’s so interesting, as it usually takes about two or three years to do an exhibition, and what’s really amazing and fascinating is how the artist sees their work and themselves differently in that time. Somehow, they’ve actually embraced faith. I don’t necessarily mean in a Christian way but they have a new and different spirituality by that engagement. They talk to the Cathedral’s communities and there’s these backwards and forwards conversations, from which everybody’s learning. Everybody’s getting something from it. It’s bringing light to everybody.'

My reviews of exhibitions curated by Jacquiline Creswell can be read here, here, and here. 

As a result, I am updating this index of interviews. I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times, International Times, Seen and Unseen and Art+Christianity. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, performers, poets and writers.

They can be found at:

Artlyst

• Michael Petry Discusses In League With Devils with Revd Jonathan Evens
• Sean Scully A Humility Towards Nature
• Winslow Homer: American Passage An Interview With Biographer Bill Cross
• Grayson Perry Tapestries On Show At Salisbury Cathedral
• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell Interviewed
• Genesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

ArtWay

• The things we carry – A collaborative exhibition by Neil Tye
• Painting the Life of Christ – an interview with Francis Hoyland
• “Giving identity to forms” – an interview with Marta Jakobovits
• Jonathan Evens in conversation with Roberta Ahmanson, Siobhán Jolley and Ben Quash
• Interview with Steve Whittle
• Paul Chandler and Brian Whelan: WHITE ROBE: An exhibition celebrating the life of Rev. Dr John Roberts among Native Americans
• TEARS OF GOLD: “The invisible light that radiates from the other” – Jonathan Evens interviews Hannah Rose Thomas
• Stations of the Cross in Hornsea: Jonathan Evens Interviews Artist Matthew Askey
• David Miller - "Form welcomes the formless home"
• Sophie Hacker - The Calling Window
• Peter Koenig interview
• Belinda Scarlett interview

Church Times

• Looking Up by Helaine Blumenfeld
• Proverbs of Micah Purnell, poster painter
• The Calling Window, by Sophie Hacker for Romsey Abbey
• Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions at Chester Cathedral
• Betty Spackman: The art and the conversation

International Times

• 'Learning my language' - Jacquiline Creswell
• Touching the Void – Communicating with a loved one, post-mortem. An interview with Alexander de Cadenet
• Scrappy and unconventional and paradoxical. An interview with Spencer Reece
• Polyphony, poetry and publishing. An interview with Chris Emery
• Jago Cooper: Living art and urgent questions

Seen and Unseen

• Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak
• Critics and curators are missing this about contemporary artists: An interview with Jonathan Anderson
• Interview: Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention
• Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions
• Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood
• How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview
• The Devil's perspective: Jonathan Evens interviews author Nicholas Papadopulos
• Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration: Shezad Dawood’s multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral
• Charm in tunes on the eastern edge: Musician and priest Rev Simpkins discusses how music is an expression of humanity and his faith

Art+Christianity

• Interview: Richard Kenton Webb by Jonathan Evens
• David Hawkins interviewed by Jonathan Evens

The Big Picture

• Meeting Christ in Sundry Places: Jonathan Evens in conversation with Francis Hoyland

Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here. I have also published an interview with artist, poet and writer Rupert Loydell, who has also interviewed Nick Battle and Steve Scott.

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Steve Scott - Not A Pretty Picture.

International Times: ‘Learning My Language’

My latest interview for International Times is with Jacquiline Creswell, who has worked as a curator with a number of Cathedrals in England and in that time has commissioned, curated and installed more than 80 exhibitions:

'It’s so interesting, as it usually takes about two or three years to do an exhibition, and what’s really amazing and fascinating is how the artist sees their work and themselves differently in that time. Somehow, they’ve actually embraced faith. I don’t necessarily mean in a Christian way but they have a new and different spirituality by that engagement. They talk to the Cathedral’s communities and there’s these backwards and forwards conversations, from which everybody’s learning. Everybody’s getting something from it. It’s bringing light to everybody.'

My reviews of exhibitions curated by Jacquiline Creswell can be read here, here, and here.

My earlier pieces for IT are: an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of:

• Michael Takeo Magruder -Reconstructed Landscape{s}
• The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s
• In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk
• Hulda Guzman: Please awake - asked Nature kindly' at Turner Contemporary;
• 'Devotions' by Lucy Caldwell and 'Catholic Modernism and the Irish ‘Avant-Garde’: The Achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy' by James Matthew Wilson;
• the 'Stations' project from Dunlin Press;
• 'William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy';
• Joseph Arthur in concert;
• installations by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen at Hayward Gsllery,
• U2's 'Days of Ash', Mumford and Sons' 'Prizefighter' and Moby's 'Future Quiet';
• 'Collected Poems' by Kevin Crossley-Holland;
• 'Lux' by Rosalía;
• 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere';
• 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne;
• 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend;
• 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins;
• 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson;
• 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art,
• albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey,
• also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku;
• 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley;
• Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel;
• T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone;
• Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition,
• 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller;
• 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt,
• the first Pissabed Prophet album; and
• 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'Spencer Reece at Bemerton' which is based on the visit that I made to Bemerton in 2026 with Spencer Reece, 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Church Times - Art review: Finding My Blue Sky (Lisson Gallery, London)

My latest exhibition review for Church Times is on Finding My Blue Sky at Lisson Gallery, London:

'THE exhibition “Finding My Blue Sky” is structured as an invitation to imagine your own paradise. The parallel title in Arabic makes this clear: “What is the World that you Dream of?”

Accordingly, the exhibition is a journey of retreat and surrender in search of a sense of longing and belonging — of home, of sacred space — by inviting viewers to participate in the creation of meaning. In the words of its curator, the art-world influencer Omar Kholeif, “‘Finding My Blue Sky’ invites spectators to indulge in the sensuous curve of artistic endeavors that exist in their own culturally situated space of dreaming — one that allows us to sketch myriad possible routes to modernity, and with this, new ways of looking altogether.”'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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Van Morrison - Remembering Now.

Unveiled: Jackie E. Burns in Conversation

This evening at Unveiled we heard from Jackie E. Burns about her work in Space Art fostering the inquisitive joy of art and astronomy, involvement in the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and involvement in community art projects in Essex. 

Jackie is an astronomical artist specializing in terrestrial and extra-terrestrial landscapes. She also creates celtic and medieval illuminations. She is a workshop designer, gives illustrated lectures and is an art exhibition curator for conferences and conventions.

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David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes.