Image: Grayson Perry at Salisbury Cathedral, 2020, experienced virtually. Photograph by Sheona Beaumont. Last month I considered some problems around theology on screen. I was drawn in to media discussions about the effects of worshipping differently, in lockdown – and on the communication of theological ideas when such worshipping happens primarily online, via Zoom or …
I’m in endurance mode with George Steiner’s Real Presences (1989). What pitted, articulate, ranging, poetic depth he brings to present-day understandings of the arts. At my sense of it, he says we need a reckoning with the undisputed ‘life of meaning in the text, in music, in art’ (p.50) because our world is doing away …
As published in the current issue of Art & Christianity (No.70, Summer 2012, p.16): Bristol City Council has recently commissioned two contemporary art works for St Bede’s Catholic College and St Bernadette’s Catholic Secondary School. Respectively, Transpire by Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva and Intersection by Michael Pinsky (both 2011), have transformed two public spaces where the footfall …
My summary points from a talk given to the spouses of vicars-in-training earlier this week: Art is not just decoration for the more serious business of the Word – background visual element to church life. Art is part of the Word. Incarnational, material. Christ is the image of God, holding everything that is created together. …
Image: Tenom I, 2011, by Sheona Beaumont Starting point (as commissioned by my brother): A reflection piece, has to be portrait format, incorporating ‘upside-down-ness’ and water’s reflections. This photograph was taken at Monet’s waterlily pond at Giverny, in 2008 on a family holiday. The day was sunny with a few clouds, my camera was a …
Image: Noah’s Ark IV – Edinburgh, by David Mach, 2011. Used with permission. David Mach’s exhibition (30 July – 16 October 2011, City Art Centre, Edinburgh) brings together a multitude of work on biblical themes, timed as it is to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James translation. There are over 40 pieces, of …
‘Now there’s a nice contemporary sunset!’ (Stevenson cartoon) Has he retreated to the safer places for conventional religious art, like above an altar or in the carefully crafted designs of church kneelers? Is he buried somewhere in the easy appropriation of sign and symbol, or Biblical reference? Does he speak through artists’ attempts to reference …
Narthex I – IV, 2011.New work for exhibition at the Grant Bradley Gallery’s group show Walking Through the Veil (Bedminster, Bristol). Trees and forests have long been held as places of mystical encounter. For Britons, it’s in our psyche, and we defend woodland religiously. Even if only as a place of nominally unspoilt nature, it’s …
