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Showing posts with label van gogh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label van gogh. Show all posts

Thursday, 5 June 2025

Artlyst: The Art Diary June 2025

My June Art Diary for Artlyst has been published today. I begin with two important recently published books about religion and contemporary art. Next, I highlight several exhibitions and artists whose work connects with the themes explored in these books. These include Anselm Kiefer, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol, alongside plans for Manifesta 16 Ruhr. I conclude with group shows that engage with contemporary issues and explore, as the title of one exhibition puts it, ‘The Shape of Now’. These include two fascinating exhibitions which are local to me, in Essex, at Focal Point Gallery and Beecroft Art Gallery:

"‘The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art’ by Jonathan A. Anderson offers a critical guide for rereading and rethinking religion in the histories of modern and contemporary art. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a marked increase in attention to religion and spirituality in contemporary art among artists and scholars alike. Still, the resulting scholarship tends to be dispersed, disjointed, and underdeveloped, lacking a sustained discourse that holds up as both scholarship of art and scholarship of religion. ‘The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art’ is both a critical study of this situation and an adjustment to it, offering a much-needed field guide to the current discourse of contemporary art and religion."

For more on Jonathan A. Anderson see here, Andy Warhol see here, and Maurizio Galia ('The Shape of Now') see here.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -
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Leonard Cohen - Amen.
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Monday, 6 January 2025

Artlyst: January Art Diary

My January Art Diary for Artlyst is a review of upcoming exhibitions in 2025 which highlights the work of major ceramicists, major artists exploring the influence of Vincent Van Gogh (and Post-Impressionism more generally), plus exhibitions exploring themes of environment and identity:

" Viewing art, as with its making, involves paying attention. As Simone Weil once pointed out, paying attention equates to prayer. A new exhibition at Fitzrovia Chapel explores these themes. It is, therefore, a very appropriate beginning to a review of upcoming exhibitions in 2025, where each exhibition listed will reward the paying of sustained attention, enabling entry to a state of contemplation and even contemplative prayer."

For more on Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone (artists included in this diary) see here, here, here, here, and here.

My other pieces for ArtLyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -
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Joy Oladokun - AM I?
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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.
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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.
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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].
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.
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Tuesday, 28 June 2022

Prophets without honour

A bit late but here's the reflection I shared on Sunday during Evensong at St Catherine's Wickford:

In his book ‘William Blake vs The World’ John Higgs writes: “Five days after [William] Blake died, he was given a pauper's burial in an unmarked grave at the Bunhill Fields dissenters' burial ground, beyond the northern boundary of the City of London. With his bones underground and his spirit departed, that should have been the end of his story.

On the face of it, the story of the clash between the world and William Blake seems a straightforward one. Blake had lacked the ability to respond to the pressures and challenges of contemporary life and society. As a result, he spent his life impoverished and misunderstood, alternately mocked and ignored. He was thought of as a madman first and an artist second. This clash, had not been a fair fight, and Blake had lost.

Some 191 years later, in the early afternoon of 12 August 2018, people began making their way to Bunhill Fields. By 3 p.m., close to a thousand people were gathered to witness the unveiling of a grave marker above Blake's remains and to pay their respects to his memory. just over a year later, a retrospective of Blake's work was held at Tate Britain. It was extraordinarily popular, selling close to a quarter of a million tickets over its four-and-a-half-month run.

His current fame and the size of his audience suggest that Blake's art contains rare gold.”

Blake is an example of a prophet without honour in his hometown and among his own kin (Mark 6:1-6). There are others whose influence has been as great, with Vincent Van Gogh being another such and Jesus, himself, being the ultimate example. That is the point of ‘One Solitary Life,’ the famous poem attributed to James Allen Francis:

“He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.”

Today we can look back and reflect on all that those who overlooked William Blake, Vincent Van Gogh, Jesus, and their like missed out on at the time and all that we have gained through the understanding of them that has developed in the years since.

However, we should not be complacent as a result, prophets often go without honour in their own time and community, so we should look with care around us at those whose voice is marginalised or overlooked and, at those from our own community. This includes those, such as Emma, Mike and Steve, who have come from the congregation to be given responsibilities within the Team, but, who it can be easy to take for granted because they are known to us, rather than those who have come from elsewhere. As those from the local area and congregations, we need to treat them with special honour because of the ease with which those who with whom we have grown up can be overlooked or under-appreciated when they, like, Jesus or William Blake or Vincent Van Gogh, are actually the local prophets that we need to hear.

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Hurtsmile - Painter Paint.
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Thursday, 3 February 2022

Artlyst: Van Gogh. Self-Portraits - The Infinite And The Ordinary

My latest review for Artlyst is of Van Gogh. Self-Portraits at the Courtauld Gallery:

'In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh wrote, ‘I’d like to paint men or women with that je ne sais quoi of the eternal, of which the halo used to be the symbol, and which we try to achieve through the radiance itself, through the vibrancy of our colourations.’

Van Gogh’s self-portraits have often been (mis)interpreted in terms of his troubled life story instead of paying attention to what he says about them in his letters. Van Gogh. Self-Portraits reconsider this aspect of his work and place his self-representation in context to reveal the role it plays in his oeuvre. Amazingly, this is the first time that the entire span of Van Gogh’s self-portraiture has been explored in an exhibition; all the way from his early Self-Portrait with a Dark Felt Hat, created in 1886 during his formative period in Paris, to Self-Portrait with a Palette, painted at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in September 1889, one of his last self-portraits before his death in 1890. What we find is the radiance of the eternal in the vibrancy of colour.'

For more on Van Gogh see my Artlyst piece Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Articles -
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The Innocence Mission - You Chase The Light.
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