London, 2024
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Billy Preston - That's The Way God Planned It.
Sunday, 21 January 2024
The water of our lives and our communities can become wine
Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:
The writer of John’s Gospel says that this miracle is the first that Jesus performed but the word used for first also means that it is the key miracle, the one that unlocks and explains all the others (John 2: 1 – 11). So, we need to ask ourselves what it is that we learn from this miracle that helps us to understand more fully what Jesus was doing through his ministry, death and resurrection.
The miracle is one of transformation; water being transformed into wine with this transformation bringing joy to the wedding guests. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brother’s Karamasov, sees this miracle’s significance in the joy that Jesus brings to ordinary people: “It was not grief but men’s gladness that Jesus extolled when he worked his first miracle – he helped people to be happy … his heart was open … to the simple and artless joys of ignorant human beings, ignorant but not cunning, who had warmly bidden him to their poor wedding.” Later in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks himself about having come to bring life in all its fullness which must include this sense of joy and gladness in life. The filling of the water jars to the full also speaks of this sense of life being filled with goodness and gladness.
In Luke 6: 38 Jesus speaks again about fullness. Here he links our fullness to our giving: “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured out into your hands – all that you can hold.” This emphasis is important because the transformation of water into wine suggests that Jesus does not simply bless human life as it is but comes to transform it.
Water is essential to life. The human body is 75% water and needs a constant supply of water to function. The average person can only survive for about three days without any water at all. So, water is a basic need for all of us and speaks to us of the basic needs that we all need to be fulfilled in order that we can live and live comfortably.
But God wants something better for us than a life based just on the meeting of our basic needs and the turning of water into wine gives us a clue as to what that better thing is. Wine reminds us of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. That moment when, out of love for all people, he lays down his own life in order to save us from all that is wrong with our lives and our world. So, wine is a reminder to us of the fact that the greatest love is shown through sacrifice.
This is the transformation that Jesus seeks to bring to human life. It is a change from human existence to human life; a change from the selfish experience of meeting our own basic needs to the spiritual experience of sharing what we have will others; a change from the evolutionary imperative of the survival of the fittest to the Christian imperative of sacrificial love.
This transformation is something that we seek to show and need to show in our churches, which is in part why we have this new exhibition in church by Maciej Hoffman. Maciej chooses “themes that pervade everyday life, our constant battle with problems which we inevitably face … issues which haunt us for years, shaping our perspective on the world and building us as humans”. He seeks: “contrasts between imagination and reality. Our expectations and our anticipations are never what we finally meet in real life … whether it’s beauty and ugliness, order or chaos - the point is, how it’s reflected in the mirror of my interpretation … I am moved by people’s stories with all their misfortunes and moments of happiness. It seems like one is always part of the other.” This is our everyday experience that Jesus comes to transform.
This transformation is also symbolised in the pouring out of the wine from the water jars. It may even be that this is the moment of transformation; just as what is drawn from the water jars to be shared with others is wine so, as we give to others, we are transformed from selfish to sacrificial. It may be that it is in the act of giving that our transformation comes. That is also why, alongside Maciej’s exhibition, we are unveiled David Folley’s descent from the cross, which shows us the reality of the suffering that was entailed in the ultimate sacrifice made for us on the cross by Christ.
Finally, there is significance in the reference to the role of the water jars in ritual washing. The water jars can be seen as signifying the Jewish faith that requires such ritual cleansing but from those jars and from that faith comes a new wine that must be poured out and shared with others. The new wine is for all; not just for the first but kept for the last as well. Wine symbolises the blood of Christ which is shed for all. God’s grace is no longer contained solely within the confines of the Jewish faith; coming to God no longer requires the meeting of the standards of the Law. This new wine bursts the old skins and is shared with all people of every nation, race, gender, age and sexuality.
So, we see depicted a change from the old order, the old covenant, to the new. And this change extends the transformation to all. What is depicted then is not solely a change for us as individuals but a societal change no longer affecting one nation but all nations. What is depicted is a new way of life, a new way of being human, which can, perhaps, be summed up in the words of John 15: 13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. He looks at all of us, at all human beings, and says, “You are my friends”. Jesus allowed his own life to end so that all people could know what it is like to really live.
In 21st century Britain we live in a culture that is parched and dry and desperately in need of the water of life. I still remember a Guardian article outlining reasons why kindness has gone out of fashion in the age of the free market and the selfish gene. The writers noted that “for most of western history the dominant tradition of kindness has been Christianity” which “functioned as a cultural cement, binding individuals into society” until “the Christian rule ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ came under increasing attack from competitive individualism.” Our society is parched of kindness and we need Jesus to bring transformation.
In Isaiah we read: “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” (Isaiah 41. 17 & 18)
Jesus is the river that flows in the desert of our selfish, self-centred existence because he shows us how to live in his new way of being human, loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves. God wants us to look at Jesus and see how human life was originally intended to be lived before we chose the path of self-centredness. It is when we look at Jesus and begin to live life his way that transformation comes in our lives and our world. The water of our lives and our communities can become wine. May it be so for us. Amen.
The writer of John’s Gospel says that this miracle is the first that Jesus performed but the word used for first also means that it is the key miracle, the one that unlocks and explains all the others (John 2: 1 – 11). So, we need to ask ourselves what it is that we learn from this miracle that helps us to understand more fully what Jesus was doing through his ministry, death and resurrection.
The miracle is one of transformation; water being transformed into wine with this transformation bringing joy to the wedding guests. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brother’s Karamasov, sees this miracle’s significance in the joy that Jesus brings to ordinary people: “It was not grief but men’s gladness that Jesus extolled when he worked his first miracle – he helped people to be happy … his heart was open … to the simple and artless joys of ignorant human beings, ignorant but not cunning, who had warmly bidden him to their poor wedding.” Later in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks himself about having come to bring life in all its fullness which must include this sense of joy and gladness in life. The filling of the water jars to the full also speaks of this sense of life being filled with goodness and gladness.
In Luke 6: 38 Jesus speaks again about fullness. Here he links our fullness to our giving: “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured out into your hands – all that you can hold.” This emphasis is important because the transformation of water into wine suggests that Jesus does not simply bless human life as it is but comes to transform it.
Water is essential to life. The human body is 75% water and needs a constant supply of water to function. The average person can only survive for about three days without any water at all. So, water is a basic need for all of us and speaks to us of the basic needs that we all need to be fulfilled in order that we can live and live comfortably.
But God wants something better for us than a life based just on the meeting of our basic needs and the turning of water into wine gives us a clue as to what that better thing is. Wine reminds us of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. That moment when, out of love for all people, he lays down his own life in order to save us from all that is wrong with our lives and our world. So, wine is a reminder to us of the fact that the greatest love is shown through sacrifice.
This is the transformation that Jesus seeks to bring to human life. It is a change from human existence to human life; a change from the selfish experience of meeting our own basic needs to the spiritual experience of sharing what we have will others; a change from the evolutionary imperative of the survival of the fittest to the Christian imperative of sacrificial love.
This transformation is something that we seek to show and need to show in our churches, which is in part why we have this new exhibition in church by Maciej Hoffman. Maciej chooses “themes that pervade everyday life, our constant battle with problems which we inevitably face … issues which haunt us for years, shaping our perspective on the world and building us as humans”. He seeks: “contrasts between imagination and reality. Our expectations and our anticipations are never what we finally meet in real life … whether it’s beauty and ugliness, order or chaos - the point is, how it’s reflected in the mirror of my interpretation … I am moved by people’s stories with all their misfortunes and moments of happiness. It seems like one is always part of the other.” This is our everyday experience that Jesus comes to transform.
This transformation is also symbolised in the pouring out of the wine from the water jars. It may even be that this is the moment of transformation; just as what is drawn from the water jars to be shared with others is wine so, as we give to others, we are transformed from selfish to sacrificial. It may be that it is in the act of giving that our transformation comes. That is also why, alongside Maciej’s exhibition, we are unveiled David Folley’s descent from the cross, which shows us the reality of the suffering that was entailed in the ultimate sacrifice made for us on the cross by Christ.
Finally, there is significance in the reference to the role of the water jars in ritual washing. The water jars can be seen as signifying the Jewish faith that requires such ritual cleansing but from those jars and from that faith comes a new wine that must be poured out and shared with others. The new wine is for all; not just for the first but kept for the last as well. Wine symbolises the blood of Christ which is shed for all. God’s grace is no longer contained solely within the confines of the Jewish faith; coming to God no longer requires the meeting of the standards of the Law. This new wine bursts the old skins and is shared with all people of every nation, race, gender, age and sexuality.
So, we see depicted a change from the old order, the old covenant, to the new. And this change extends the transformation to all. What is depicted then is not solely a change for us as individuals but a societal change no longer affecting one nation but all nations. What is depicted is a new way of life, a new way of being human, which can, perhaps, be summed up in the words of John 15: 13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. He looks at all of us, at all human beings, and says, “You are my friends”. Jesus allowed his own life to end so that all people could know what it is like to really live.
In 21st century Britain we live in a culture that is parched and dry and desperately in need of the water of life. I still remember a Guardian article outlining reasons why kindness has gone out of fashion in the age of the free market and the selfish gene. The writers noted that “for most of western history the dominant tradition of kindness has been Christianity” which “functioned as a cultural cement, binding individuals into society” until “the Christian rule ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ came under increasing attack from competitive individualism.” Our society is parched of kindness and we need Jesus to bring transformation.
In Isaiah we read: “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” (Isaiah 41. 17 & 18)
Jesus is the river that flows in the desert of our selfish, self-centred existence because he shows us how to live in his new way of being human, loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves. God wants us to look at Jesus and see how human life was originally intended to be lived before we chose the path of self-centredness. It is when we look at Jesus and begin to live life his way that transformation comes in our lives and our world. The water of our lives and our communities can become wine. May it be so for us. Amen.
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Judee Sill - The Donor.
Who Tells Your Story? Who Tells Your Future? An exhibition of paintings by Maciej Hoffman
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Who Tells Your Story? Who Tells Your Future?
An exhibition of paintings by Maciej Hoffman
23 January – 29 March 2024
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
‘I choose themes that pervade everyday life, our constant battle with problems which we inevitably face. But also issues which haunt us for years, shaping our perspective on the world and building us as humans. I try to capture the moments of tension, the climax, and the spark before ignition.’
- Holocaust Memorial Day reflection – 27 January, 3.00 pm.
- Hear Maciej speak about his work at ‘Unveiled’ – the arts & performance evening in St Andrew’s Wickford - Friday 9 February, 7.00 pm.
Maciej Hoffman was born in Wrocław, Poland in 1964, the son of artist parents, growing up under Poland's communist regime; after studying philosophy at the School of Theology in Wrocław, he graduated in Painting and Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Art in 1992. Becoming fascinated with web art and new graphic technologies, he then worked for 15 years in one of Poland's largest advertising agencies until a watershed moment in 2003, when he returned fulltime to the studio and to oil painting. He moved to England in 2012, in search of new artistic and life opportunities, and continues to paint, teach and exhibit in the UK and abroad.
Here he became involved in leading art workshops for school students, encouraging self-expression through art therapy for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, or coping with mental health issues and trauma. He also contributed artworks to exhibitions dealing with conflict and resolution, including two marking Holocaust Memorial Days in 2012 and 2018 respectively. Maciej Hoffman's work has been exhibited in the UK on numerous occasions, including at Chelmsford Cathedral; Barry Gallery Central; Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) Gallery and Willesden Gallery (both London), and at the Warwick Art Centre.
‘Painting begins with a spark, an idea, an impulse. Sometimes it seems as though the painting creates itself, intuition guides me during the process … In trivialities as well as in big events I seek contrasts between imagination and reality. Our expectations and our anticipations are never what we finally meet in real life. This constant collision fascinates me. It’s irrelevant whether it’s beauty and ugliness, order or chaos - the point is, how it’s reflected in the mirror of my interpretation … I am moved by people’s stories with all their misfortunes and moments of happiness. It seems like one is always part of the other.’
https://www.maciej-hoffman.com/ https://www.buru.org.uk/record.php?id=1443
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Sufjan Stevens - Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Dave Crawford in concert
Friday 8 March, 7.00 pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
Popular local musician, Dave Crawford writes engaging/melodic songs in Americana/Alt-Rock/Indie-Folk. He has performed at the Leigh Folk Festival, Pin Drop Sessions, and Music for Mind together with Kev Butler. He was recently included on The Open Mic Show Album, Vol. 1 from SoSlam. We have enjoyed Dave’s powerful vocals and guitar here when he has performed previously at our Open Mic Nights.
Popular local musician, Dave Crawford writes engaging/melodic songs in Americana/Alt-Rock/Indie-Folk. He has performed at the Leigh Folk Festival, Pin Drop Sessions, and Music for Mind together with Kev Butler. He was recently included on The Open Mic Show Album, Vol. 1 from SoSlam. We have enjoyed Dave’s powerful vocals and guitar here when he has performed previously at our Open Mic Nights.
Dave says: “I am a singer/songwriter, musician and visual artist and was born and bred in Wickford. I have Bi Polar Disorder and my last spell on a psychiatric ward was 4 years ago, after which I settled back in the old home town. I've been writing and performing songs for over 30 years, but the last 4 years in particular have been very productive. All the songs I will be performing have come from this period, with the majority of the set written or finished in 2023.”
Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church
No ticket required – donations requested on the night
Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church
No ticket required – donations requested on the night
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Sunday, 14 January 2024
Windows on the world (459)
Rettendon, 2023
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Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime.
Conversations that enlarge our world
Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford and St Mary’s Runwell this morning:
The two stories that we have heard read this morning (1 Samuel 3: 1-10 & John 1: 43-end) are linked by the idea that conversations can surprise us and enlarge our understanding of life.
Samuel is surprised by the voice that he hears in the night. At first, he can only think of it in terms of his known frame of reference and therefore he thinks that the voice he is hearing must be that of Eli, the Temple Priest, although Eli assures him that this is not the case. After hearing the voice three times his world is enlarged by the understanding that God can and wants to speak to him. What a revelation! His whole world is changed in a moment and the direction of his life shifts in that moment. He goes on to listen to and talk with God throughout his life and becomes one of the greatest leaders in Israel as a result.
In our gospel reading, Nathanael has a conversation with Jesus which begins with Nathanael closing down possibilities – “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” – but ends with him acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. What a transformation brought about through a brief conversation.
Just think for a moment about what happens when we are in conversation with other people. First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.
Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”
Conversation with others can enlarge our understanding of reality, help us come to know ourselves better and make us aware of all that we share with others. It is perhaps because of these possibilities that the Bible is full of conversations and that God appears to want to draw us into conversation with himself. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, I know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as I respond with my whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.
This way of thinking about life as a constant conversation with God, I think, makes sense of Paul’s statement that we should pray without ceasing. If we talk to God about all that we encounter and feel in our daily lives and if we constantly look to hear from and encounter God in the ordinary, everyday things, people and situations around us, then we will be in a constant conversation with God. Life itself will be a conversation and that enlargement of understanding, increased self-knowledge and awareness of what we share with others will become our reality.
These are particularly valuable reflections for us near the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Some measure of unity will only come within the Church as we engage in and remain in conversation with each other. Often the issues that divide us seem to push us towards the breaking off of conversation but, if we are serious, about the unity of the Body of Christ and about the importance that the Bible places on conversation then ending conversations should be the last thing that we consider.
So, as the week of prayer for Christian Unity approaches, let us enter into prayer as a lifelong constant conversation with God and let us enter into conversation with others as a means of affirming what we share despite our differences. Then we will know our world being enlarged in the way that was the case for both Samuel and Nathanael. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.
The two stories that we have heard read this morning (1 Samuel 3: 1-10 & John 1: 43-end) are linked by the idea that conversations can surprise us and enlarge our understanding of life.
Samuel is surprised by the voice that he hears in the night. At first, he can only think of it in terms of his known frame of reference and therefore he thinks that the voice he is hearing must be that of Eli, the Temple Priest, although Eli assures him that this is not the case. After hearing the voice three times his world is enlarged by the understanding that God can and wants to speak to him. What a revelation! His whole world is changed in a moment and the direction of his life shifts in that moment. He goes on to listen to and talk with God throughout his life and becomes one of the greatest leaders in Israel as a result.
In our gospel reading, Nathanael has a conversation with Jesus which begins with Nathanael closing down possibilities – “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” – but ends with him acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. What a transformation brought about through a brief conversation.
Just think for a moment about what happens when we are in conversation with other people. First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.
Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”
Conversation with others can enlarge our understanding of reality, help us come to know ourselves better and make us aware of all that we share with others. It is perhaps because of these possibilities that the Bible is full of conversations and that God appears to want to draw us into conversation with himself. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, I know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as I respond with my whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.
This way of thinking about life as a constant conversation with God, I think, makes sense of Paul’s statement that we should pray without ceasing. If we talk to God about all that we encounter and feel in our daily lives and if we constantly look to hear from and encounter God in the ordinary, everyday things, people and situations around us, then we will be in a constant conversation with God. Life itself will be a conversation and that enlargement of understanding, increased self-knowledge and awareness of what we share with others will become our reality.
These are particularly valuable reflections for us near the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Some measure of unity will only come within the Church as we engage in and remain in conversation with each other. Often the issues that divide us seem to push us towards the breaking off of conversation but, if we are serious, about the unity of the Body of Christ and about the importance that the Bible places on conversation then ending conversations should be the last thing that we consider.
So, as the week of prayer for Christian Unity approaches, let us enter into prayer as a lifelong constant conversation with God and let us enter into conversation with others as a means of affirming what we share despite our differences. Then we will know our world being enlarged in the way that was the case for both Samuel and Nathanael. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.
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Gerry Rafferty - Who Cares.
Saturday, 13 January 2024
Celebration and Compassion
‘Celebration and Compassion’, the winter exhibition at Chappel Galleries, features work by Alex Debenham, Andrew Gadd, Claire Cansick, David Stone, Francis Hoyland, Frances Mann, Graham Giles, Ian Poulton, John Maddison, Jonathan Clarke, Julie Giles, Mary Griffiths, Michael Fell, Paul Rumsey, Peter Campbell, Peter Kelly, Peter Rodulfo, and Tom Deakins. The exhibition mixes a range of religious imagery with depictions of churches or cathedrals. It includes a liturgical banner designed by Tom and Sylvia Deakins that St. Mary’s Church, Dunmow, has lent.
In 2008, a specially commissioned painting of the nativity by Andrew Gadd, set in a freezing bus shelter, was displayed in bus shelters across the UK. That painting depicted the holy family, with halos, in a dark bus shelter. The shepherds and wise men were replaced with fellow passengers waiting for a bus. Some were watching the nativity intently; others appeared oblivious and were checking the bus timetable and flagging down a bus. In a similar vein, Gadd’s images in ‘Celebration and Compassion’ – ‘Fairground Crucifixion’ and ‘Underground Jesus Study’ – also set Christ compellingly within contemporary contexts.
Jeremy Theophilis writes of Peter Campbell: "Whilst his images seem easy to the eye, and they are indeed a tribute to the obvious joy he took in manipulating paint on canvas, there is beneath the surface a constant questioning and exploring of relationships. These can be between mankind and nature (farmworkers, gardeners), mankind and its mythology (deities and nymphs), male and female, old age and youth, or even the continuous relationship between the landscape and the seasons."
Nick Stone writes of Clare Cansick: "Nature is her primary subject, with an emphasis on beauty and power of elemental forces; her focus has been primarily on water in its reflective capacity, but also the earth and the growing environment, air, and the play of light and dark within skies and cloud, and more recently the power of fire. One theme that runs through a lot of her paintings is the latency of memory; the diffusion the experience of growing up and living in these watery landscapes with expansive skies."
Tom Deakins writes: "inspiration starts with a sense of place and as another East Anglian artist once said, ‘I should paint my own places best.’ I have returned to subjects that I feel a deep affinity with. Over time, through changing moods and seasons this familiarity has become deeply ingrained."
Michael Fell "drew, painted, and made prints continuously, chronicling the people, cities, towns, and nature around him in a large and varied output."
Antony Eyton writes of Frances Mann, Graham and Julie Giles: Frances Mann paints "small vivid pictures, in her own words “chasing a moment when a piece of colour or a thrilling spatial arrangement in a particular light seem like something I don’t want to forget”. The result is poetic, whether it be washing on a line from a glimpse or from memory the rising moon in a landscape. There is a beguiling simplicity and rightness of composition she shares with her husband Sargy."
"Graham Giles is a painter to his finger tips. He embraces landscape in a physical way, feeling its rhythms and presence. He empathises with water, trees or rocks, the way he paints expressive and in tune with his feelings."
Julie Giles is also a landscape painter. "She hits a note with perfect pitch. She has painted a lot in watercolour which has had a liberating effect, giving her oils a fine transparency. Both painters have a high intelligence and this shows in the intensity of their expression. In Julie’s case she wants to incorporate figures. It’s as if she likes both Bonnard and Breughal. She needs the flitting of figures on beach or amongst the trees as much as she needs solitude in a landscape pure and simple."
Mary Griffiths writes: "I'd be so pleased if these portraits were seen as a homage to our best instincts which is to value life in it's infinite variety and intrinsic worth. For me, irrespective of whatever else one's bent on expressing,the act of painting with it's deep and boundless pleasures, conjoins us with the perpetual flow of humankind at it's venerative best,exclaiming it's"transcendent wonder" and ineffable joy in being alive. Or as my mother once put it succinctly "it's your way of saying hallelujah"."
Past exhibitions including religious work at the Gallery have included Colin Moss' 'Paintings, Religious & Profane': "Once his teaching duties at Ipswich Art School were finished for the day, Colin Moss would cross the road to The Arboretum pub for a drink. Very much a “fireplace and floorboard” pub, with little in the way of creature comforts, Colin felt at home amongst the working men and the “down at heel” who drank there and the camaraderie of its rough and ready clientele is reflected in many of these works such as The Last Supper and Carrying the Dead Christ. In 1990, an exhibition of this work entitled ‘Paintings, Religious & Profane’ was held at the Chappel Galleries in Essex. The exhibition received a great deal of media attention, including an interview for BBC News."
Chappel Galleries for many years exhibited work by Roderick Barrett. David Buckman writes: "Roderic Barrett was one of the most distinctive artists working in Britain in the twentieth century whose importance has yet to be appreciated. He is the opposite of the commercial painter of pretty pictures that fill a gap in the sitting room wall and convey their message in a glance. The Greeks had a saying that “The beautiful things are difficult”. Barrett’s pictures are difficult for anyone seeking easy interpretation, but their reward can be powerful memories. The human condition is Barrett’s subject and his view of it is often bleak and melancholic."
In 2008, a specially commissioned painting of the nativity by Andrew Gadd, set in a freezing bus shelter, was displayed in bus shelters across the UK. That painting depicted the holy family, with halos, in a dark bus shelter. The shepherds and wise men were replaced with fellow passengers waiting for a bus. Some were watching the nativity intently; others appeared oblivious and were checking the bus timetable and flagging down a bus. In a similar vein, Gadd’s images in ‘Celebration and Compassion’ – ‘Fairground Crucifixion’ and ‘Underground Jesus Study’ – also set Christ compellingly within contemporary contexts.
Jeremy Theophilis writes of Peter Campbell: "Whilst his images seem easy to the eye, and they are indeed a tribute to the obvious joy he took in manipulating paint on canvas, there is beneath the surface a constant questioning and exploring of relationships. These can be between mankind and nature (farmworkers, gardeners), mankind and its mythology (deities and nymphs), male and female, old age and youth, or even the continuous relationship between the landscape and the seasons."
Nick Stone writes of Clare Cansick: "Nature is her primary subject, with an emphasis on beauty and power of elemental forces; her focus has been primarily on water in its reflective capacity, but also the earth and the growing environment, air, and the play of light and dark within skies and cloud, and more recently the power of fire. One theme that runs through a lot of her paintings is the latency of memory; the diffusion the experience of growing up and living in these watery landscapes with expansive skies."
Tom Deakins writes: "inspiration starts with a sense of place and as another East Anglian artist once said, ‘I should paint my own places best.’ I have returned to subjects that I feel a deep affinity with. Over time, through changing moods and seasons this familiarity has become deeply ingrained."
Michael Fell "drew, painted, and made prints continuously, chronicling the people, cities, towns, and nature around him in a large and varied output."
Antony Eyton writes of Frances Mann, Graham and Julie Giles: Frances Mann paints "small vivid pictures, in her own words “chasing a moment when a piece of colour or a thrilling spatial arrangement in a particular light seem like something I don’t want to forget”. The result is poetic, whether it be washing on a line from a glimpse or from memory the rising moon in a landscape. There is a beguiling simplicity and rightness of composition she shares with her husband Sargy."
"Graham Giles is a painter to his finger tips. He embraces landscape in a physical way, feeling its rhythms and presence. He empathises with water, trees or rocks, the way he paints expressive and in tune with his feelings."
Julie Giles is also a landscape painter. "She hits a note with perfect pitch. She has painted a lot in watercolour which has had a liberating effect, giving her oils a fine transparency. Both painters have a high intelligence and this shows in the intensity of their expression. In Julie’s case she wants to incorporate figures. It’s as if she likes both Bonnard and Breughal. She needs the flitting of figures on beach or amongst the trees as much as she needs solitude in a landscape pure and simple."
Mary Griffiths writes: "I'd be so pleased if these portraits were seen as a homage to our best instincts which is to value life in it's infinite variety and intrinsic worth. For me, irrespective of whatever else one's bent on expressing,the act of painting with it's deep and boundless pleasures, conjoins us with the perpetual flow of humankind at it's venerative best,exclaiming it's"transcendent wonder" and ineffable joy in being alive. Or as my mother once put it succinctly "it's your way of saying hallelujah"."
Francis Hoyland writes that each print in his series of Ninety One Etchings on The Life of Christ "had a religiously inspired meditation on the subject and an account of something that had recently happened to me. In this way I hoped to show some relation between interior meditation and everyday events."
James Steward writes that Peter Rodulfo’s "work inhabits the world between what we know and what we dream, treading a line between reality and imagination. They evoke a kind of instability, a sense that change, like the end to a long British Winter, is the only constant. They are both alien and a form of shorthand in the form of gestures that refer to shared experience that reveal a mesmerising creative world."
David Buckman writes of the the storehouse of inspirations which have fed Paul Rumsey's work over several decades: "That storehouse is packed from floor to ceiling with an enormous collection of books, pictures, films and events ranging from the outwardly mundane to the bizarre, fantastic and grotesque." He hopes that people will come to "more readily appreciate the work of a unique artist such as Rumsey who has, as Blake put it, “that greatest of all blessings, a strong imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things in his own mind.”"
James Steward writes that Peter Rodulfo’s "work inhabits the world between what we know and what we dream, treading a line between reality and imagination. They evoke a kind of instability, a sense that change, like the end to a long British Winter, is the only constant. They are both alien and a form of shorthand in the form of gestures that refer to shared experience that reveal a mesmerising creative world."
David Buckman writes of the the storehouse of inspirations which have fed Paul Rumsey's work over several decades: "That storehouse is packed from floor to ceiling with an enormous collection of books, pictures, films and events ranging from the outwardly mundane to the bizarre, fantastic and grotesque." He hopes that people will come to "more readily appreciate the work of a unique artist such as Rumsey who has, as Blake put it, “that greatest of all blessings, a strong imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things in his own mind.”"
Chappel Galleries for many years exhibited work by Roderick Barrett. David Buckman writes: "Roderic Barrett was one of the most distinctive artists working in Britain in the twentieth century whose importance has yet to be appreciated. He is the opposite of the commercial painter of pretty pictures that fill a gap in the sitting room wall and convey their message in a glance. The Greeks had a saying that “The beautiful things are difficult”. Barrett’s pictures are difficult for anyone seeking easy interpretation, but their reward can be powerful memories. The human condition is Barrett’s subject and his view of it is often bleak and melancholic."
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Anawim - Give Us The Peace.
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