This evening's
Unveiled at
St Andrew's Wickford was an illustrated talk reflecting on my experiences of writing on the Arts for publications including
Artlyst,
ArtWay,
Church Times,
International Times,
Seen and Unseen and
Stride Magazine, among others:
My writings on the Arts and other topics have been published in the following:
AM, Artlyst,
ARTS, ArtWay, Art & Christianity,
ArtServe,
Ben Uri Gallery & Museum, Church Times,
Epiphany,
Faith in Business Quarterly,
Franciscan,
Image Journal, International Times,
Muslim Weekly,
National Church Trust, New Start, Seen and Unseen,
Strait, Stride Magazine and the
Visual Commentary on Scripture. This includes articles, exhibitions, interviews, meditations, poetry, reviews, and short stories.
My writings on the Arts were first published in 1984 in ‘Strait’, the Greenbelt Newspaper. The
Greenbelt Festival began in 1974 with holistic take – ‘Bible in one hand and newspaper in the other’ – and the belief that all artistic expression and endeavour was God-given. ‘Strait’, which has been described as Greenbelt’s very own quarterly answer to the NME, first appeared in 1981 as the literary wing of the Festival. It sought to assess what was going on in the world, its institutions and our environment from a framework of thinking which is biblical universality.
My contributions to ‘Strait’ included poetry and art, book, drama, film and music reviews. So, all the things that I continue to write about regularly. My contributions were primarily made when the poet
Stewart Henderson was Editor and later, through a friend at
St Martin-in-the-Fields, I was able to get back in touch with Stewart and thank him for his support of my early writing.
I also had my first article published in ‘Strait’ – a profile of the poet
Ted Hughes – and this generated the first public critique I had received. That came from another regular contributor to ‘Strait’, the poet
Rupert Loydell. Rupert argued that in writing about Hughes, I had fallen into the trap of expecting secular writers to fit into our patterns of belief. Receiving feedback of your writings and opinions is always useful and Rupert’s critique was a helpful corrective.
At this time, Rupert also published some of my poems in Stride Magazine, a small press publication that he began in 1982. He has therefore edited Stride magazine for over 40 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. He and I have kept in touch over the years. He did a poetry reading at
St Stephen Walbrook while I was there. He has also helpfully introduced me to others with whom I have collaborated. I continue to write for Stride and also for International Times, where he is a contributing editor.
I maintained and developed my interest in the Arts but didn’t really get the opportunity to publish writing on the Arts again until I had begun my ordained ministry. In 2002 I had an article published on the spirituality of U2 and this was based on a prize-winning essay that I wrote while training for ordination (read the essay by clicking here -
1,
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7). However, in 2006, based on the engagements between art and church that I set up while on my curacy at
St Margaret’s in Barking I began writing regularly for both Church Times and Art & Christianity.
My first published piece for Church Times was called ‘Silent Touches of Time’ and was about an art project undertaken by
Michael Cousin which led to an exhibition, in St Margaret’s called “Memento”, showing contemporary photographs of Barking set alongside archive photographs and a film, Re:Generation, documenting local people’s memories and views on change. In the article I noted that time had swept away architecture that would once have seemed monolithic and that, in Cousin’s photographs, everything is different. I continue to write regularly for Church Times with the 16 January 2026 edition including both a
book review and an
exhibition review. Over the years I have also contributed a number of feature articles on art and artists.
My first piece for Art + Christianity was also based on an exhibition linked to St Margaret’s. This exhibition was at the
William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow and featured work by
George Jack, a craftsperson for Morris & Co, who had undertaken a significant restoration of St Margaret’s. We contributed pieces to the exhibition and the curator gave a talk about George Jack at St Margaret’s. In my review, I reflected on the somewhat stuffy image that the Arts & Crafts movement, of which Jack was part, now has and said that the exhibition revealed the way in which beauty continues to enhance and entrance long after the ephemeral bubbles of contemporary concepts have burst. My most recent piece for Art + Christianity was published last year, an extensive interview with an artist whose work I have long admired,
Richard Kenton Webb.
Once re-established as a published writer, I was able to expand the range of publications for which I was able to write. I began to write Visual Meditations for ArtWay. These focus on one specific artwork and exploring artists, art movements, and biblical allusions. Founded in 2009 by
Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, the daughter of the renowned art historian,
Hans Rookmaaker, ArtWay publishes materials and resources for scholars, artists, art enthusiasts and congregations concerned about linking art and faith.
Hans Rookmaaker and his friend Francis Schaeffer were among the first art historians and theologians that I read who engaged positively with artists and made connections between art and faith. I later met Marleen in Geneva while on an art pilgrimage as part of my sabbatical in 2014 when I visited churches in Belgium, France, Switzerland and the UK that had commissioned contemporary art for spaces. I wrote a series of Church reports for ArtWay based on those visits but now mainly undertake interviews with artists as my ongoing contribution to ArtWay.
I met
Paul Robinson, the Editor of Artlyst, through the art critic
Edward Lucie-Smith, who wrote regularly for Artlyst at the time. I first encountered Edward as a poet. He was paired with
Jack Clemo, a poet that I had read from my teens, in the Penguin Modern Poets series. When I began organising art exhibitions at St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London, I soon met Edward and worked with him on a significant number of the exhibitions we held at St Stephen. Through Edward, I met artists such as
Terry Ffyffe,
Alexander de Cadenet,
Kim Poor and
Joe Machine, all of whom exhibited at St Stephen’s. I also met Paul as a result of Edward and he invited me to begin writing for Artlyst. This was my first opportunity to writing for a mainstream Arts outlet, as opposed to church-based outlets, and this offered different opportunities for content and influence.
My first piece for Artlyst, published in 2016, was entitled ‘
Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?’ and concluded that: ‘Caravaggio cannot be viewed as a ‘good’ Christian but the idea of ‘good’ Christians is no relevance to a faith built on the need that all have for forgiveness. Christianity is nothing, if not a faith for second chances and new opportunities. Caravaggio’s art remains potent for Christians because of the incarnational basis of its pauperist spirituality. As a result, his life and art is a demonstration of the value to the Church of commissioning art that is both innovative and controversial when those creating such art reveal an understanding of the wellsprings of Christian spirituality and theology.’ The article covered similar ground to my ‘Strait’ article on Ted Hughes but now I was not falling into the trap of expecting artists to fit our patterns of belief. I still write reviews and a monthly diary for Artlyst and have also had the opportunity to interview significant artists including
Sean Scully,
Michael Petry,
Alexander de Cadenet and many others.
My writings for Artlyst led to my being invited to write for Seen and Unseen, a publication from the Centre for Cultural Witness which brings together voices from many mainstream Christian traditions to give new insights on culture, politics, history, spirituality, freedom of belief, philosophy and theology. Writing for Seen and Unseen has enabled a greater breadth to my writing on the Arts as I write on music and literature as well as visual art. I also get more opportunity to reflect spiritually of the artists, musicians and writers about which I write. My latest piece for Seen and Unseen is a reflection on the Christian influences found in the work of
John Constable and JMW Turner.
My ongoing contact with Rupert Loydell has led to my writing on poetry and publishing poetry in Stride Magazine and International Times. International Times is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. IT restarted first as an online archive in 2008 and in 2011 relaunched as an online magazine publishing new material. It offers another mainstream context for my writing and also enables me to write across a range of genres.
Finally, primarily through contacts made and enhanced by St Martin-in-the-Fields, I have written a number of online exhibitions for the Visual Commentary on Scripture. The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.
Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text. My
exhibitions are: 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4; 'A Question of Faith' on Hebrews 11; 'Fishers of People' which discusses Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20; 'Before the Deluge' a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6; and 'Establishing the Heart' which reflects on 1 Thessalonians 2:17–4:12.
What is potentially of more interest that this summary of my career in Arts journalism are some reflections on the reasons why I write as I do.
As I write both for mainstream arts audiences and for people within the Church, I am principally trying to do two things. One is to flag the range of ways in which the Church has engaged constructively with the Arts, particularly in the modern and contemporary period when that has commonly been thought not to be the case. The other is to highlight the extent to which artists continue to engage with religion (and Christianity in particular) and with spirituality more broadly in order show how awareness of their work can broaden and deepen our understandings of faith. While both are of relevance to both audiences, the former is more for my mainstream audience and the latter for my Church-based audience.
The reason why it is necessary to focus on these two themes is that my Church-based audience is often unaware of the wealth and richness of ways in which artists have and are engaging with themes of faith, while my mainstream audience are often coming from a place where art critics and curators dismissed and rejected any exploration of themes relating to faith in the works of artists. For my Church-based audience greater awareness can enrich and deepen their understanding of faith, while for my mainstream audience greater awareness leads to greater understanding of art through gaps in art history and art criticism being filled.
My writings, as with others such as
Jonathan A. Anderson, are a response to the reality that, while many modern artists engaged with religion in and through their work, art critics and art historians routinely overlooked or ignored those aspects of the work when writing about it. They did so because of a secularisation agenda that overrode reflection on key elements of the art that artists were creating. This was coupled with a reluctance among many in the Church to engage with the Arts in the modern period because of misperceptions about secular agendas.
In
Modern Art and the Life of a Culture, Jonathan A. Anderson, together with
William Dyrness, recovered some of the religious influences explored in the work of key modern artists by writing an alternative history of modern art. Following publication, I
interviewed Jonathan for Artlyst on the themes of the book. More recently, with
The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art, Anderson has addressed the central issue, which is the way in which art critics and historians have written about modern and contemporary art. Again, I have
interviewed Jonathan on the themes of his new book, as well as writing a
review.
His book, which has been called “a bombshell on the playground of the art historians and art critics”, sets out a compelling case for histories of modern and contemporary art “to be reread and rewritten in ways that understand religion and theology more seriously”. It effectively clears space for and reshapes the basis on which such work can and should be done in future. As a result, the place of religion in contemporary art is no longer strange, as it has a renewed visibility and one that can receive informed attention. My hope is that my writings contribute to that renewed visibility and informed attention.
Contemplation and conversation have become two key themes for understanding engagement between the Arts and spirituality today.
Paying attention is fundamental to the work that artists do, to viewing art and also to contemplative prayer. The artist
Grayson Perry told this story in the last of his
Reith Lectures: “Recently a friend told me that she was working on an education programme at the
Whitechapel Art Gallery and at the beginning of the project she asked the children, she said, “What do you think a contemporary artist does?” And this very precocious child, probably from sort of Muswell Hill or somewhere like that, she put her hand up and she said, “They sit around in Starbucks and eat organic salad.” Now it was probably quite an accurate observation of many fashionable artists in East London, but I thought … you know anyway. So then after this, they spent some time looking at what contemporary artists did. And at the end of the project, she asked them again, “What now do you think an artist does?” And the same child, she said, “They notice things.” And I thought wow, that’s a really short, succinct definition of what an artist does. My job is to notice things that other people don’t notice.”
Noticing things that other people don’t notice; that thought is one area of overlap between the Arts and Christianity because the Bible is full of encouragement to reflect. The words, reflect, consider, ponder, meditate and examine, crop up everywhere. God encourages us to reflect on everything.
In his letter to the Philippians, St Paul encourages to look out for see those things that are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4. 8).
Simone Weil said that “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”
As a result, the art historian
Daniel Siedell suggests that the Arts can help us with looking and paying attention. He says, “Attending to … details, looking closely, is a useful discipline for us as Christians, who are supposed to see Christ everywhere, especially in the faces of all people. If we dismiss artwork that is strange, unfamiliar, unconventional, if we are inattentive to visual details, how can we be attentive to those around us?”
Problems come, as he notes, when we dismiss what we see or when, as Jesus said, we are people who see but do not perceive, who hear but do not listen (
Matthew 13. 12 - 14) instead, as Jesus said, we should give our “entire attention to what God is doing right now …” (Matthew 6. 34 – The Message)
Conversation represents a change from the approach that the Church took at earlier stages in its engagement with art and artists. When the Church was the major patron of artists, it controlled content and imagery wanting art to retell the Bible stories those unable to read. Creative artists at the time found inventive ways to put their own stamp on the work nevertheless. However, contemporary artists are aware of the control that the Church exercised as patron and have no wish to return to that arrangement.
Dialogue, however, is a much more respectful relationship, as the Church has discovered in the arena of interfaith dialogue. The conversation is only possible when all the conversation partners agree that each can say what they see, with the others listening before discussing synergies and differences. The foundation of respect and attention enables genuinely insightful conversations to occur. That, I think, is the primary aim for churches in hosting exhibitions. When churches do this, they discover that conversation connects – with artists, with the Art world, with those who regularly view art and with the casual visitor (by enhancing the depth and variety of their experience in the space).
Artist and theologian
Makoto Fujimura advocates for a spirit of generosity that awaits genesis moments that have generative capacity. He arrives at the image of an estuary, where salt-water mixes with fresh, in a confluence of river and tidal waters.
An estuary is an environment not of protection but of preparation. Estuaries are a critical nursery area, for example, for young salmon, striped bass, and other fish that come downstream after hatching. Life in semi-protected estuarial wetlands during a critical period in their development readies these fish for life in the ocean. Estuaries’ purpose is not so much protection as preparation. Each individual habitat strengthens its participants to interact with the wider environment, making for a diversity that is healthy enough for true competition.’
Sam Wells suggests that Fujimura’s image of an estuary offers a humble but intriguing reassessment of what the church thinks it’s doing when it engages with culture. One might say the church has long assumed it was the sea, to which every river led. Or it might be said to have identified with the pure water of the river, in contrast with the salty water of the sea. But the image of an estuary is helpful for a church regarding itself as a meeting place of human and divine, gospel and culture, timeless truth and embodied experience, word and world.
‘… the metaphor of a transitional place where cross-fertilisation can take place and creativity can thrive amid diverse conversation partners may be apt. Churches work hard to make themselves inspiring locations where people are drawn into a sense of the presence of God; but they can work equally hard to make themselves hospitable locations where people of varied backgrounds may gather in a spirit or mutual appreciation, generous regard and constructive challenge. The two purposes of church need not be mutually exclusive.’
Sam also shows how: ‘Art is a perfect example of how such an estuary space may flourish. A congregation may encourage art on three levels. One is the participatory: a local church may host an artists’ and craftspeoples’ group; it may take participants of all abilities; there’s no reason why it can’t host members of all faiths and none; perhaps each month a member of the group may be invited to exhibit their work in a valued and visible place, and be given the opportunity to write or speak about it.
Another is the aspirational: a competition might be held for an artefact to be placed permanently in the church building, tenders invited, donors sought, publicity encouraged, visitors attracted. Similar approaches might apply for temporary art installations.
A third level is the commercial. A church building might be a suitable venue for a display and sale of artworks; yet another host of new faces drawn in, conversations triggered, relationships made; and the church perhaps taking a 20% cut of all piece sold.
In a short time, a secluded, secretive space may be opened out to become a centre of community activity, energy, and creativity. Much the same principles and categories would apply for choral music or drama or literature. What’s needed is for a church to let go of the need for direct outcomes and linear trajectories and to let the Holy Spirit govern the interactions and catalyse its own surprises.’
That has been my experience as I have seen artworks speak powerfully and movingly of the Christian faith and therefore inform the spirituality of those who see them. My writing on the Arts seeks to inhabit this liminal estuary-type space and open up conversation and contemplation both for those who read mainstream art criticism and for those reading Church publications.
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