Earthairwaterfire exhibition

I've spent today assisting Bishop David with his marvellous Earthairwaterfire exhibition at St Peter's Harold Wood. We have had tremendous support and help in hanging the show from folk at St Peter's which has enabled Bishop David to show both his largest expansive landscapes together with smaller more intimate work.

Bishop David is fascinated by the organic structure of landscape and its transitory appearance as weather and light pass over it. Like landscape, many of these pieces are layered whether composed using stripes of colour or collage. The concept for the exhibition comes from the Prayer of Anthony the Great; 'Keep us alive with the earth of humility, with the air of contemplation, with the water of remorse and the fire of love.'

The opening times for the exhibition are: Weekdays 9.00am - 5.00pm. Saturday 15th March 9.00am - 12.30pm. Evenings Wednesdays and Fridays 6.00pm - 9.30pm. The exhibition is open until Friday 21st March.

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Lifehouse - Aftermath.

Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Oisín Kelly and Patrick Pye

Two artists not included in Theology and Modern Irish Art by Gesa E. Thiessen but who have made significant contributions to religious art in Ireland are Oisín Kelly and Patrick Pye.

Oisín Kelly was one of the most versatile figures in Irish sculpture: "In 1949, Kelly received his first Church commission from the architect Liam McCormick. Thereafter, religious themes and motifs were a consistent element in his output. Indeed, he was arguably one of the few artists capable of producing religious artworks which had a genuine religious feeling - the result of deep but simple conviction, without rhetoric or sentimentality, though often with a touch of humour.

In 1951, Kelly became a member of the Committee of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art ... [In 1966 he] received a commission for a statue for the new Liberty Hall in Dublin. (The statue, 'Working Men' was subsequently relocated to City Hall, Cork. Another of Kelly's sculptures, 'The Children of Lir' was sited in the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin ...

In addition to religious and commemorative work, Kelly excels in studies of birds and animals - for example, his work 'Birds Alighting' - and small scale sculpture such as, 'The Dancing Sailor'. As a sculptor, he was equally comfortable with wood, stone, or metalwork like bronze and steel, and in stature he was the foremost Irish sculptor of the generation who emerged at the beginning of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art."

Patrick Pye started painting in 1943 under the sculptor Oisín Kelly. "He has completed many major commissions on religious themes, including Glenstal Abbey, Co. Limerick; Church of the Resurrection, Belfast; Convent of Mercy, Cookstown, Co. Tyrone (1965); Fossa Chapel, Killarney (1977); a triptych illustrating man's expulsion from the Garden of Eden at Bank of Ireland headquarters (1981); and Stations of the Cross for Ballycasheen Church in Killarney (1993). Recent commissions include an altarpiece, stained glass windows and roundels for a rebuilt church at Claddaghmore, Co. Armagh (1997-98); a crucifix for Our Lady of Lourdes church in Drogheda (1999); The Life of Our Lady, a six-panel painting on copper for the North Cathedral in Cork (1999); The Transfiguration, a 10-foot wallhanging for St. Mary's Oratory at NUI Maynooth (2000) and The Baptism of Christ, an oil painting for a new church at Drumbo, Belfast. The Royal Hibernian Academy exhibited Triptychs and Icons, a retrospective of his work, in 1997. Since the Millennium a large painting Theologian in his Garden has been acquired by St Thomas' University in St Paul (MN) for their Centre of Catholic Studies."

Brian McAvera argues in Patrick Pye: Life and Work that "Pye ... far from being on the periphery, is central to the Irish tradition and that he, along with a number of other English-born artists long resident in Ireland such as Camille Souter, reinvigorated the Irish tradition." McAvera also reviews Pye's influences:

"[Paul] Gauguin is ... a clear source, especially in a religious painting like Jacob Wrestling with the Angel with its flat areas of pure colour which are used non-naturalistically, whether for symbolic or expressive purposes. Gauguin, well aware of the decorative effect of colour - and Pye is a frankly decorative painter in terms of colour - also used strong outlines which, because of their patterned rhythms, often suggest the compositional structure of a stained glass window. Pye, who has been producing stained glass since the mid-1950s, and for whom luminosity is central, also structures in terms of patterned rhythms and strong outline shapes.

Gauguin, under whose influence they were formed, leads inevitably to the Nabis, and the Nabis are central to Pye and his use of colour. 'I am influenced by the Nabis. They are quite a concern of mine. I don't want to describe. I want to give a wholeness to the story. It is colour that is important. It's always directed towards the whole of our experience. Colour is what makes space. Line draws out from space. For me it's quite appropriate that Christian art should be abstracted, rather than descriptive'. That combination of the use of colour (symbolic, expressive, flat and often saturated), and abstraction rather than description, is of course precisely what marks out Gauguin's manner in his religious work, or, for that matter, other Pont-Aven artists such as Émile Bernard. It is also the hallmark of so many of the Nabis ... and the Irish artist sees a strong connection between abstracted art and Christianity, citing the tradition of Icons, El Greco and the Nabis, especially Maurice Denis, [Pierre] Bonnard and [Félix] Vallotton.

Denis, whose early work was very influenced by Gauguin, was, like Pye, a devout Catholic who wanted to re-invigorate contemporary religious painting ... his work often used pale, somewhat muted colours, but he emphasized flat patterning and was a markedly decorative painter ...

While Pye has always evinced a distinct liking for the English mystical tradition, the dominant English influence on him as a very young man was that of Neo-Romanticism. Of the nine artists featured in Malcolm Yorke's seminal study The Spirit of Place, five were mentioned by the artist: Paul Nash, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Robert Colquhoun and Keith Vaughan. Of these Nash and Sutherland are the key figures, 'Paul Nash was quite an influence on me; the little tiny photograph in the early volume [i.e. Penguin Modern Painters] of The Dead Sea. I still love Nash's sensuous quality of painting ...'

Graham Sutherland is probably a deeper influence ... The artist, noting that Sutherland 'converted [to Catholicism] in my childhood, being of my mother's generation', did a copy of The Blasted Oak, 'made a pilgrimage' to see the Northampton Crucifixion at St Matthew's Church, and also saw the tapestry at Coventry Cathedral and the Noli Me Tangere altarpiece at Chichester ...

Of the contemporary mystical painters both Cecil Collins and David Jones, visionaries who are sometimes considered Neo-Romantics, were of interest, But Stanley Spencer, in terms of impact, is probably close to Sutherland ... the artist's visionary quality of bringing the Bible into the present ... provide a parallel to Pye's work ...

Like so many of the twentieth-century European painters he admires, such as [Marc] Chagall, [Georges] Rouault or [Henri] Matisse ... he is a colourist who has created religious works which function equally well for the religious and the non-religious alike ...

Irish art begins to establish its own identity through the confluence of Northern Irish artists like [Colin] Middleton, [Gerard] Dillon, F.E. McWilliam, William Scott and George Campbell, alongside Southern ones like Louis le Brocquy, Jack B. Yeats, Brian Bourke, Nano Reid, Camille Souter, Mary Swanzy, Norah McGuiness and Evie Hone. Pye, like Bourke, le Brocquy and all of the previously mentioned female artists, is particularly interested in Modernism, especially in the abstracting elements and in the non-naturalistic use of colour. he builds on the foundations first established by these female artists, and then reinforced by Doreen Vanston, Elizabeth Rivers and many others, and like Bourke, Souter and Reid in particular, he develops an art whose taproots delve deeply into modernism."

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Van Morrison - Spirit. 

Windows on the world (284)

Barcelona, 2013

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World Party - She's The One.

What do we really want or need?

The South East, along with the South West, had some of the highest levels of average life satisfaction ratings in England recorded during 2012/13. You may not be aware that the Government now measures National Well-being but that is the case and, in terms of people’s personal well-being, the questions asked are:

1. Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
2. Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
3. Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
4. Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

How would you answer those questions? The Government is saying that our sense of well-being comes from our sense of being satisfied, feeling our life has worth, feelings of happiness and low levels of anxiety. Do you agree?

We tend to expect that most people, if asked, will say that money, fame or power are the things that they really want. Here’s a fairly typical statement from one online blogger about this question: "Most people would list money as the most wanted thing in the world … We can't deny the fact that money forms an essential part of our life, and without money, people generally are miserable and live miserably …  The other primary things that humans desire and seek (fame, happiness, success, etc.) also are connected to money and mostly are a direct result of being financially well-off. So, in my opinion, money is the thing people want most in the world."

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who wanted to understand what really motivates people. He devised a model called the hierarchy of needs which suggests that we are all motivated to achieve certain needs but that our basic needs have to be satisfied before we will be motivated to achieve our higher needs. On his five stage model our most basic needs are physiological i.e. for air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, and sleep. Next come safety needs - protection from the elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, and freedom from fear. After that come social Needs - belongingness, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, and romantic relationships. Then come esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, and respect from others. Finally, come self-actualization needs - realizing our personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs gives a broader perspective on the question of what we really want as human beings but it doesn’t fully accord with what we see Jesus saying and doing in today’s Gospel reading which is also an exploration of what we really need, want or think is most important in life.

The temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness are threefold; food, fame and power (or on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - basic needs and esteem needs). Jesus has been fasting in the wilderness of forty days and forty nights. He is very hungry but he resists the temptation to meet his basic needs by turning stones into bread. He quotes scripture to argue that receiving from God is more fundamental to human well-being than food itself. Jesus keeps his focus on God. Hearing from God is what is most important to him. God’s word is his food, his breath - the thing he needs more than anything else in this world.

Then Jesus is tempted to achieve celebrity or fame by a public act of self-aggrandisement - jumping from the highest point of the Temple and surviving. The result would be that everyone would know how wonderful Jesus is because God would not allow him to die. Jesus responds by quoting again from scripture - "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." He knows who he is and doesn’t need to adulation of other human beings in order to feel confident in his relationship with God.

Finally, he is tempted by power - "all the kingdoms of the world in all their greatness" all to be given to Jesus if he follows the way of the world rather than that of God. Again he quotes from scripture in replying: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him!’

This is what is at the heart of the matter for Jesus. In responding to these temptations, he is fulfilling the Law by keeping the greatest and the most important commandment: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22. 37).

The temptations he faces are, as Tom Wright writes in ‘Matthew for Everyone’, all ways of distorting his true vocation: "the vocation to be a truly human being, to be God’s person, to be a servant to the world and to other people". Jesus is "committed to living off God’s word; to trusting God completely, without setting up trick tests to put God on the spot. He is committed to loving and serving God alone. The flesh may scream for satisfaction; the world may beckon seductively; the devil himself may offer undreamed-of power; but Israel’s loving God, the one Jesus knew as father, offered the reality of what is meant to be human, to be a true Israelite, to be Messiah."

"When Jesus refused to go the way of the tempter he was embracing the way of the cross. The enticing whispers that echoed around his head were designed to distract him from his central vocation, the road to which his baptism had committed him, the path of servanthood that would lead to suffering and death. They were meant to stop him from carrying out God’s calling, to redeem Israel and the world.

The temptations we all face, day by day and at critical moments of decision and vocation in our lives, may be very different from those of Jesus, but they have exactly the same point. They are not simply trying to entice us into committing this or that sin. They are trying to distract us, to turn us aside, from the path of servanthood to which our baptism has commissioned us. God has a costly but wonderfully glorious vocation for each one of us. The enemy will do everything possible to distract us and thwart God’s purpose …

But, as God’s children, we are entitled to use the same defence as the son of God himself. Store scripture in your heart, and know how to use it. Keep your eyes on God, and trust him for everything. Remember your calling, to bring God’s light into the world. And say a firm ‘no’ to the voices that lure you back into the darkness."

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Rosanne Cash - What We Really Want.

Farewell Songs of Praise and Earthairwaterfire exhibition

Chelmsford Cathedral was packed today for a truly joyful Songs of Praise service at which we said farewell to Bishop David, the Bishop of Barking, on his retirement. The service reflected the diversity of the Barking Episcopal Area with which Bishop David has fully engaged and celebrated throughout his ministry with us. Contemporary and traditional hymns were mixed with a rapper, African drums, Gospel singers, choral singing, a 50-piece orchestra, the worship band from Good Shepherd Romford, mime from Ken Wylie, along with contributions from Bishop Stephen, Duncan Green, Joel Edwards, Jonathan Oloyede, Martin Webster, John Perumbalath and many others, all organised by Paul Bowtell and a team of helpers.

Bishop David is well known for his visualisations of the Gospel message which have remained in people’s memories and hearts long after his visits. Over the years in church at various confirmation services we have seen him release live doves, wash and iron clothes, pitch a tent and boil a kettle on a camping gaz stove, use a leaf blower to fill the sails of a full-size sailing dinghy, bake a cake, build a wall and burn straw. At my first training weekend as a curate he did a handstand to demonstrate the way in which Jesus, through his teaching in the beatitudes, turns our understanding of life upside down. 

His approach has been to use surprise, shock, mirth and amusement in order to make what are hopefully memorable spiritual and theological points because our insistence on using far too many words often goes right over people’s heads and a picture can say more than a thousand words. Jesus also used visuals in his very concrete teaching, so he always felt he was in good company in using everyday objects to make connections for others. He explained more in an interview with me in 2008 which can be read here and here. 

Before he leaves us Bishop David is exhibiting his paintings at St Peter's Harold Wood from 11th – 21st March. He is a landscape artist who works with acrylics, watercolour, mixed media and installations. He is fascinated by the organic structure of landscape and its transitory appearance as weather and light pass over it. Bishop David has exhibited previously in Stafford, Leeds, Merseyside, London, Nigeria and Capetown. Earthairwaterfire can be viewed weekdays from 9.00am – 5.00pm. Saturday 15th March, 9.00am – 12.30pm. Wednesday and Friday evenings from 6.00 – 9.30pm.

He has said of his artwork: "I am inspired by landscape. Most of what I paint has its inspiration in landscape. I can’t help but be influenced by landscapes and townscapes. As early as I can remember I have enjoyed walking in the countryside. I also enjoy mountain climbing and grasp any opportunities to get out into wide open spaces. My ministry has mainly been urban and time in the countryside is a counterpoint to where I’ve tended to live in my ministry. But I’m also inspired by colourful, busy townscapes and the quirkiness of that as well."

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Brenton Brown - Everlasting God.

Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Derek Clarke

The work of the artist Derek Clarke, who has died aged 101, was inspired for more than 80 years by the landscapes of Scotland and Ireland, the vigorous example of Van Gogh, and his Roman Catholic faith. Find out more by reading his obituary in today's Guardian.

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Runrig - Hearts Of Olden Glory.

Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Theology and Modern Irish Art

In Theology and Modern Irish Art Gesa E. Thiessen explores central issues in the dialogue between theology and art, paying special attention to the spiritual aspects of a number of modern Irish painters. Those artists whose work she discusses are:

Mainie Jellett: 'In her search for truth and vision as a painter, Mainie Jellett became a seminal figure and leader of the Irish modernist movement ... Jellett’s work was based on biblical themes, as she herself was a religious and spiritual person. She was influenced by the work of the early Renaissance artist Fra Angelico, celebrated for his beautiful frescos, which gave an emotive and serene quality to religious themes. Jellett’s ‘compositions’, as many of her religious paintings were entitled, contain figurative elements, often presented in ambiguous, non-representational, symbolic ways, such as Abstract Composition (c.1935), housed in the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.'

Jack B. Yeats: 'There can be little doubt that the dominant figure in Irish painting of the twentieth century is Jack B. Yeats (1869-1957). The son of an outstanding painter and the brother of Ireland’s pre-eminent poet, he would have had every excuse if he had felt overwhelmed by their combined gifts and as a result had failed to realise his full potential as an artist. And in fact Jack Yeats was a very modest, man, private and unassuming where his poet-brother was very much a public figure His rise as a painter was slow and though his early work has plenty of vitality, his great period as a colourist did not begin until the late 1920s, when he was already middle-aged. His work is a unique fusion of realism and imagination, of the everyday and the visionary, and his nervous brushstrokes and broken, irridescent colour were far in advance of their time particularly in relatively provincial Ireland.'

Louis le Brocquy: 'Contrary to a generally held view, I think that painting is not in any direct sense a means of communication or a means of self-expression. When you are painting you are trying to discover, to uncover, to reveal. I sometimes think of the activity of painting as a kind of archaeology - an archaeology of the spirit.' 

'Like the Celts I tend to regard the head as this magic box containing the spirit. Enter that box, enter behind the billowing curtain of the face, and you have the whole landscape of the spirit.'

Gerard Dillon: Gerard Dillon and Mainie Jellett 'shared an interest in Irish legend and Celtic iconography.  Dillon had visited the Boyne Valley and explored the monastic ruins at Mellifont and Monasterboice.  He was much taken by the Irish high crosses and subsequently these would appear regularly in his work.'

'The artist held his first solo show in 1942 in the country shop, Dublin. Opened by Mainie Jellett, other works from this period are characteristically naïve and contain a Christian theme; Forgive us Our Trespasses, An Aran Funeral, and Dust to Dust. The images are depicted with humour in a simple and child like manner with disproportionate perspective to enhance symbolism often evoking a message.'

Colin Middleton: 'At times these paintings achieve an intense and almost visionary sense of union with the landscape, evoking its power, its rhythmic energy and its colors.'

Mary Magdalene and the Holy Trinity 'is one of the few of this time to make a religious reference in its title or subject. The titles of many post-war paintings used Biblical quotations which matched the emotional pitch of those works, but the works in this first exhibition are more ambiguous and witty in their expression of ideas.'

Patrick Collins: 'Patrick Collins’ landscapes are primarily influenced by his childhood memories of the rural surroundings in Co. Sligo. He approaches the landscape in a philosophical, ethereal way. He is not just depicting the land – he is also searching to capture the emotive memory and experience of a place. The landscapes go beyond the literal to present a dreamlike vision, an illusive quality, recalling how Collins felt as a child inhabiting the landscape. ‘In Collins’s work there is [a] constant and ambiguous shift between what is seen and what is known, what is present and what is absent, what is felt and what is remembered.’ ...

During the 1950s, Collins’ paintings focused on religious themes, affording him the opportunity to bring figurative elements into his work. He embarked on a journey from Dublin to Donegal to study the depictions of the stations of the cross in various parish churches. The paintings are simplistic and childlike in their treatment of the figure, telling the story of the crucifixion of Christ. Once again, Collins focuses on the emotive element of the story through compositional devices, isolated figures, sparse backgrounds and limited colour to create an atmosphere and mood. One of his paintings, entitled Crucifixion (After a Child’s Drawing) (1964), was a direct response to viewing his daughter Penelope’s drawing of the scene, capturing a child’s feelings and interpretation of the story.'

Tony O'Malley: 'O’Malley treated religion with respect, but was drawn more to a simple spirituality. He inherited some of his father’s West of Ireland pre-Christian ideas. In Callan, he loved the mystic Abbey well which was deemed to have curative properties.

“I’m a Pantheist at heart”, he said proudly. From an early age, he wanted to get behind the seeming reality of things to probe hidden meanings. When asked about his conception of God some years ago, he replied: “God is that ash tree outside, the birds singing, and also the magpie competing with other birds for a grub in the clay”. He felt it was important to be at one with nature. “Children have this sense of wonder before the school system kills it”, he opined.
This communion with nature and the spiritual dimension to his life informed much of his painting.'

Patrick Scott: 'Patrick Scott developed a type of Minimalism, using unprimed canvas together with tempera and gold leaf, in restrained, mathematically organised, modular arrangements, with a contemplative spiritual quality. He drew back from the machine ethic of the American artists who had pioneered Minimalism during the 1950s, preferring the handcrafted element of the application of gold leaf.'  

Patrick Graham: 'Art historian, writer and curator Peter Selz ... says that Graham “confronts the viewer with drawings and paintings of shattering force … [he] makes us aware that great painting has a presence and a future.” Art historian John Handley notes that Graham’s work “addresses the timelessness of time, the repetition of history, and the continuous cyclical nature of silence, abandonment, and redemption in the creative process.” In the artist’s own words, “The silence becomes the painting, the painting comes from silence. It is the moment when painting is no longer an act of doing or making but of receiving.” ...

Graham’s inspiration is deeply rooted in the Irish landscape, in vistas and places that hold deep meaning for him. The Irish affinity for nature, combined with profound experiences of both oppression and repression, has led to extraordinary artistic expressions in poetry, music, and dance. This cultural and artistic milieu formed Graham’s visual expression. His work incorporates ambiguous symbolic forms and scripted phrases that resonate like fragments of traditional song and lyrical poetry which spring from a unique historical consciousness; through them he explores the elemental processes of life and the existential journey. Among the realities he acknowledges in a sensitive voice is the Irish religious experience, particularly of the Catholic faith, yet his work has universal appeal to those who struggle with issues of identity, freedom, or faith.'

Patrick Hall: 'The sense of religion is very strong in me, it's indefinable ambiguities, the timeless infinitude of space. My father's family was Protestant and my mother's family was Catholic so that helped. That also puts me slightly on the edge of society, or maybe I have chosen to be on the edge, but that is one part of my history that removes me from the centre, edges feed me. Gradually as I got older these things became very meaningful for me and have remained very meaningful for me. They were doors to transcendence, to stepping outside of myself, towards otherness. Religion I suppose is a kind of window to the sky. I did an exhibition of paintings of clouds and the cloud represents a kind of unknowing. There's a thing called the cloud of unknowing, so religion is about not knowing. Religion is really a bad word, inaccurate. Otherness matters more than anything.'

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Energy Orchard - King Of Love.