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Tuesday, 14 October 2025

Artlyst: Can We Stop Killing Each Other? – Sainsbury Centre

My latest review for Artlyst is on 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?', a series of exhibitions at The Sainsbury Centre that include an installation by Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Anton Forde, a series of new paintings reflecting on the refugee crisis by Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa; presentations of historical artworks such as Claude Monet’s ‘The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil’, and an exhibition spanning Shakespearean tragedy to Hitchcockian spectacle, which asks questions of violent stage and screen narratives, plus (still to come, in November) ‘Seeds of Hate and Hope’ highlighting personal artistic responses to global atrocities, such as genocides, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity:

'Given that, according to the Global Peace Index 2024, one hundred countries have been “at least partially involved in some form of external conflict in the past five years, up from 59 in 2008”, this is a timely series of exhibitions.

The Sainsbury Centre’s radical exhibition programme is based on the understanding that art not only addresses fundamental societal challenges but also engages people with the fundamental questions of life. As such, he argues, regarding this exhibition series: “The emotional power of art to generate empathy and understanding is what enables us to explore the world around us from a completely different perspective. This is what makes these exhibitions so resonant and impactful. They bring into sharp relief our ability for compassion, sensitivity and hope; some of the best defining traits of what makes us human.”'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Edwin Starr - War.

Friday, 13 October 2023

Seen&Unseen: Life is more important than art

I've just started writing for Seen&Unseen, which aims to make Christian faith better understood in public, displaying the creative, imaginative, culture-shaping power of the Christian gospel.

In my first article I review the themes of recent art exhibitions tackling life’s big questions and the roles creators take. Part of my article is based on a paper I presented at The Art of Creation, a conference held at Kings College London and organised through the National Gallery’s Interfaith Sacred Art Forum, which brought together speakers from a wide range of disciplines to explore the intersection of art, theology, and ecology:

"The conference was part of a year-long series of reflections on three paintings from the National Gallery’s Collection – Claude Monet’s Flood Waters, Vincent Van Gogh’s Long Grass with Butterflies, and Rachel Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase - which raise ecological concerns. The papers exploring aspects of these paintings drew on an eclectic, yet fascinating, range of sources including: Maori beliefs; the Jewish and Christian scriptures; South African poetry; the Nouvelle Theologie; the theology of resonance; the writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Marilynne Robinson; and a range of related artworks including the work of Barnett Newman and Regan O’Callaghan. The conference initiated a dialogue regarding ways in which art and faith together can help us make reparative connections in a fragile world and its approaches suggest ways of engaging with the big issues that artists and curators are exploring."

In the article I suggest that these "ways of relating art, creation and faith suggest one approach to engaging with the big issues that artists and curators are exploring and which faith communities, including the Church, have explored throughout the history of humanity."

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Bruce Cockburn - To Keep The World We Know.

Tuesday, 5 September 2023

The Art of Creation

This one-day conference brought together speakers from a wide range of disciplines to explore the intersection of art, theology, and ecology. The event, at King's College London, fostered dialogue and collaboration between these fields and encouragement of innovative approaches.

The programme included short papers that explored the relationship between art, theology, and ecology in relation to three works of art from the National Gallery’s collection: Monet’s 'Flood Waters', Van Gogh’s 'Long Grass with Butterflies', and Ruysch’s 'Flowers in a Vase'. It also featured a reflection on the 'Saint Francis of Assisi' exhibition at the National Gallery, from co-curator Joost Joustra.

The presentations were:

Art At Creation’s Extinction: Ecological Theologies in Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase and Regan O’Callaghan’s St Paul and the Huia – Steve Taylor
‘God Saw All That He Had Made and Found it Very Good’ – Melissa Raphael
Letting Creation Speak: A Theology of Resonance and the Ecological Art of Vincent van Gogh – Wes Vander Lugt
Nouvelle Theologie, Van Gogh, and Artist Practice – Anna Yearwood
Reflections on St Francis of Assisi – Dr Joost Joustra, as Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Associate Curator of Art and Religion and one of the curators of the exhibition
‘We Are Water Spirits’: An Ecofeminist Theological Response to Monet’s Floodwaters in Conversation with South African Poetry – Ninnaku Oberholzer

My paper 'Job 38.1-11 and The Art of Creation' explored the way in which the abundance of nature exceeds human constraints in the three images. Claude Monet depicts river waters exceeding their natural banks to flood surrounding lands in Flood Waters, Vincent Van Gogh paints an expanse of grass extending beyond his canvas in Long Grass with Butterflies, while Rachel Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase brings flowers that bloom at different times of year together in one image. This evidence of our inability as human beings to corral nature was equated to the intent of the questions posed by God in Job 38.1-33, as these are intended to show Job (and the readers of this text) the limits to human understanding. The ways in which the three artists use their canvasses was also explored in order to contrast the limits of human understanding and the fecundity of nature with the necessity of edges, frames, and other constraints in order that human beings sub-create or co-create. In these ways, the paper reflected on the possibilities and limits to human creativity in relation to divine creativity, using the attempt by artists to depict the beauty and wonder of God’s creation on canvas as a paradigm for creation-care more generally.

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Water into Wine Band - Harvest Time.

Friday, 11 August 2023

National Gallery: The Art of Creation conference

This one-day conference brings together speakers from a wide range of disciplines - scholars, artists, theologians, faith leaders and practitioners from different fields - to explore the intersection of art, theology, and ecology.

The event, taking place at King's College London, aims to foster dialogue and collaboration between these fields and encourage innovative approaches.

The programme includes short papers that explore the relationship between art, theology, and ecology in relation to three works of art from the National Gallery’s collection: Monet’s 'Flood Waters', Van Gogh’s 'Long Grass with Butterflies', and Ruysch’s 'Flowers in a Vase'. It will also feature a reflection on the National Gallery's summer exhibition, 'Saint Francis of Assisi', from co-curator Joost Joustra.

I will be giving a paper on Job 38:1-33 and the Art of Creation.

Download the conference programme [PDF].

Tuesday, 5 September 2023
10.30 am - 4 pm, doors open at 10 am
Great Hall, King's College London - Strand Campus

Tickets

Standard: £10
Concessions: £5

Please book a ticket to attend this conference, which is taking place at King's College London - Strand Campus.

If you would prefer to watch the livestream of the conference, please book tickets here.

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Pissabed Prophet - Waspdrunk.

Sunday, 13 August 2017

Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Mystical Landscapes

Continuing the current trend of exhibitions which explore aspects of the spirituality of modern art (such as Divine Beauty: From Van Gogh to Chagall and Fontana and still small voice: British biblical art in a secular age), Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, Van Gogh and more was organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in partnership with the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to explore the mystical experiences of 37 artists from 14 countries, including Emily Carr, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Georgia O'Keeffe and James McNeill Whistler.

The years between 1880 and 1930 were marked by rampant materialism and rapid urbanization. Disillusioned with traditional religious institutions, many European, Scandinavian and North American artists searched for an unmediated spiritual path through mystical experiences.

Seeking an order beyond physical appearances, going beyond physical realities to come closer to the mysteries of existence, experimenting with the suppression of the self in an indissoluble union with the cosmos. It was the mystical experience above all else that inspired the Symbolist artists of the late 19th century who, reacting against the cult of science and naturalism, chose to evoke emotion and mystery.

The landscape, therefore, seemed to these artists to offer the best setting for their quest, the perfect place for contemplation and the expression of inner feelings.

Contemplation, the ordeal of the night or of war, the fusion of the individual with the cosmos, and the experience of the transcendental forces of nature, were stages in the mystical journey on which this exhibition invited viewers to take.

Highlights in the exhibitions included Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone at Arles from 1888, which prompted him to write about feeling “a tremendous need of —shall I say the word—religion...so I go outside at night to paint the stars”; Paul Gauguin's vivid Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) from 1888, painted during his sojourn in rural Brittany; Claude Monet's Water Lilies (Nymphéas) from 1907, which he painted after hours of Zen-like meditation beside his Japanese water garden; Edvard Munch's The Sun, created to inspire students in the wake of his well-publicized nervous breakdown between 1910-1913; Georgia O'Keeffe's Series I - from the Plains from 1919, which shows the terrifying power of an approaching thunderstorm in Texas; and a series of mystical lithographs by the recently rediscovered French artist Charles Marie Dulac, which illustrates St. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of Creation.

Click here for the detailed presentation of this exhibition on the website of the Musée d'Orsay.

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Scott Walker - It's Raining Today.