Lent Exhibition: St John the Baptist, Epping

Epping artists have entered into the spirit of Lent this year by creating new works of art for an exhibition on The Way of the Cross, which will be on display at St John the Baptist Epping (who are new members of commission4mission) in the run up to Easter.

The exhibition features 15 specially created art works by the Epping Arts Society on different aspects of Jesus’ last journey of suffering to the cross, some using different media and both traditional and contemporary settings - the pilgrimage walk to Lindisfarne, a London street.

St John’s Rector, Revd. Geoffrey Connor, challenged the art society last September to interpret these traditional devotions in new ways. Fourteen artists took up the challenge and the result is an inspiring mix of different styles and subjects, placing Jesus in traditional as well as contemporary urban street scenes and in the British landscape, in abstract, in naturalistic forms and in clay.

‘It’s unusual because normally when artists tackle this subject they paint all fifteen and there is a recognisable style. The exhibition is different, unusual and, I believe, stimulating,’ said Revd. Connor.

‘I hope those who use the stations as a meditation on the Good Friday journey of Jesus from Jerusalem to Calvary will find it a spiritual experience, whilst others will enjoy the art for its own sake. Few, I suspect will leave unmoved.’

Featured images above are by Penny Foulds, Pauline Stanley, Vincent Coughlin, Roger Fitz-Gibbon, Wendy Webb and Peter Cartwright.

The exhibition is open until 14th April. A booklet containing the pictures, bible meditations and prayers is available priced £1. For further information and comment please call: Epping Team Curate: Revd Helen Gheorghiu Gould. Tel (mob): 07866 451744. Tel (landline): 01992 560999.

Whilst at St John's, visitors can also see permanent artworks by Charles Hare, C.E. Kempe, G.F.Bodley, Josephina de Vasconcellos FRBS, and P.G.C.Northam, as featured in the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area.

Launch of the Tokarska Gallery

Jonathan Evens and Henry Shelton attended the launch of the Tokarska Gallery tonight. The gallery is a vibrant, independent contemporary art space which is a quality addition to the E17 art map. The gallery will provide a platform for innovative British and international practice in traditional and new media.


The gallery has launched with Lost & Found: an exhibition of cityscapes exploring existential and psychological states in painting between abstraction and representation. This show presents works by Ukrainian-born artist and gallery founder Nadiya Pavliv-Tokarska, including her most recent paintings, depicting London’s metropolitan architecture as a starting point. She combines realist painting techniques (use of perspective, micro-detail and layered glazes) with a partial breakdown of the visual field that is both perceptual and metaphoric. Informed by Gerhard Richter’s “out of focus” blur and other disruptive devices, Pavliv-Tokarska’s painterly surfaces are fragmented in order to represent subjective positions from the meditative to the lucid dream.

“Through my work I try to communicate the idea of vulnerability, the fragility of human existence”, says Pavliv-Tokarska, a graduate of Middlesex University’s Fine Art programme. This philosophical attitude is nuanced by the artist’s active interest in quantum physics and neurology, particularly in terms of the physiology of emotions and the concept of a “collective consciousness.” Her works therefore deal with notions of connectivity, as well as reworking modernist painting’s early 20th-century concern with the “dissolving atom” in light of contemporary scientific developments.

According to James Little, managing director of the Screen Talent Agency, Shoreditch, “The London paintings… convey an unusual perspective and mood. Though obviously concerned with the works of man – architecture, buses, telephone kiosks and so on - actual people are only depicted as fleeting shadows,
if at all. They’re Hopper-like in some ways, though more abstract.”

The gallery launch featured a special preview of Lost & Found, accompanied by a live performance from Rome Pays Off, a North London band formed by members of the ambient instrumental group Rothko. The gallery is open to the public 31st March – 28th May, Thurs – Sat, 12 – 7pm or by appointment. Address 163 Forest Road, Walthamstow, London, E17 6HE. Nearest tube Blackhorse Road (Victoria line).

art, pray, love

Wendy McTernan is to help curate art, pray, love, an art festival being put on by Hillside Church Wimbledon. The programme for the Festival is as follows:

Festival launch: Saturday 26th March, 10am @ The National Gallery: Gallery visit and Guided Tour with Gallery Lecturer and Art Historian, Stuart Currie. A former lecturer in the History of Art at the Education Departments of the National and Tate Galleries, and at the Universities of London, Reading and Kingston. In his earlier career he trained in Fine Art and taught painting and drawing in London. He now works as an Arts Evangelist for the London City Mission, and has given talks across the capital, in other parts of the UK, and in France, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria and Poland.

Sunday 27th March, 1030am @ Hillside: Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper. Talk given by Richard Thomas.

Mothering Sunday 3rd April, 1030am @ Hillside: John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents. Talk given by Susanna Thomas.

art, pray, love: Exhibition Opening: Thursday 7th April, 7pm @ Hillside. Come and meet the artists and find out more about far reaching church partnerships. All art is for sale with 15% of proceeds going to YMCA London South West. A donation of £5 to £10 will be collected at the door / Free for those on benefits.

Saturday 9th April, 10am @ Tate Britain: Gallery visit and Guided Tour with Gallery Lecturer and Art Historian, Stuart Currie (Art Trolley for Kids provided).

Sunday 10th April, 1030am @ Hillside: Andrea Mantegna, The Agony in the Garden. Talk given by Stuart Currie.

Sunday 17th April, 1030am @ Hillside: Gerrit Van Honthorst, Christ before the High Priest, c.1617, National Gallery, London - Richard Thomas

Good Friday Experience: 22nd April, Art Exhibition Open 10am-2pm @ Hillside. Plus: Pavement Café, artist in residence window and an art workshop for all.

Easter Sunday: 24th April, 1030am @ Hillside: Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601, National Gallery, London - Stuart Currie.

Sunday 12th June, 1030am @ Hillside: Art, Faith, Life: Artist, Charlie Mackesy talks to us about his work.

Please note: Gallery Tours will be charged at £5 per person / Free for those on benefits. Book your place at: art@hillsidewimbledon.org.

Colours & Stations of the Cross

Colours & Stations of the Cross is the next commission4mission exhibition, to be held at All Saints Maldon from Saturday 16th – Friday 22nd April, 10.00am – 4.00pm, and featuring Stations of the Cross by Rosalind Hore combined with pottery by Harvey Bradley. Harvey's pottery has been designed to complement Rosalind's Stations through its use of colour.

Rosalind Hore is a sculptor and painter of Christian subjects – Christ figures, nativity sets, Ecce Homo, Stations of the Cross etc. She works in clay, plaster, concrete (figures can also be bronze cast at the foundry). Her paintings are mostly in acrylic of the events in the life of Christ. Her work can currently be seen St Edmund's Tyseley, St Laurence Upminster, and St Mary's Goring-by-Sea. Rosalind seeks to express exaggerated emotion in her work through the use of elongated stylized figures, strong colour and sweeping folds, which exaggerate both movement and emotion. All these characteristics of her work are apparent in the Stations of the Cross which are to be exhibited at All Saints Maldon during Holy Week 2011. The Stations of the Cross have been a big influence on her and her work. Each of the Stations in this series feature three rose buds as a sign of the Trinity.


Trained as a designer, Harvey Bradley is a long standing and selected member of Anglian Potters – a prestigious association that exhibits members work in such venues as Ely Cathedral, All Saints (Jesus Lane) and Emmanuel College in Cambridge. As well as contributing to these, Harvey has shown work at Chichester Cathedral, Spring Harvest, New Wine and Greenbelt with the Christian arts group Veritasse. He says: "There is something exciting about taking dull, grey, ash from the burning of wood and using it on pottery, particularly porcelain, to form colourful glazed surfaces. To me this transformation process is meaningful. We use a jug for baptisms at our church on which the ash (symbol of repentance) after being fired to 1260 C has become a textural gold colour (an encouraging warm earthy gold). Colours like this can lift the spirit."

Jim Insole

Jim Insole lives in Neath, South Wales. He became a committed (R.C.) Christian in 1966 and soon became aware of a facility to represent devotional religious and philosophical ideas graphically. He has been engaged in religious art, much of it ceramic, since 1975. Before this he was a gardener and has continually been a folk musician since the late 1950's.

He studied art and pottery during the '80's, setting up a small, basic pottery workshop in the early '90's. Here he evolved the mandala-like bas-relief plaque form which may be seen above. He graduated in theology in 2005 from Lampeter College (University of Wales), with an emphasis on scriptural studies (with Greek and Hebrew), and Early Church History. He retains an abiding interest in cosmology and philosophy.

Since 2005 he has resumed potting and painting. At root, his work seeks to reconcile traditional (but not fundamentalist!) doctrine with current perceptions of the cosmos and history, anthropology etc. Even more importantly it seeks a peace, a shalom between what is believed, what is intellectually perceived and what is devotionally, existentially and emotionally felt.

Dedication of completed commission

Memorial windows designed by Henry Shelton and etched by Richard Paton will be dedicated at All Saints Hutton on Sunday 27th March.

The windows which are set within a screen and depict symbolically a variety of saints have been commissioned in memory of Patricia Harries and will be dedicated by the Archdeacon of Southend during an 11.15am Service of Holy Communion. A small reception will follow the service.

A further commission for windows in the opposite screen is also under discussion.

Launch of Tokarska Gallery

Nadiya Pavliv-Tokarska, will be launching the Tokarska Gallery in 163 Forest Road, Walthamstow, E17 6HE on Thursday March 24, from 6pm to 9pm.

Since the idea of opening a gallery came to her in 2008, with the help of other individuals in the art world, they have been able to lease the building for the next four years. Nadiya says: “I have a passion for art and a love for Walthamstow and its diverse culture, so it feels like a natural step to open a beautiful art space that the community can share and enjoy. I have experienced an overwhelming sense of community and support from local residents and public projects and am delighted to make Walthamstow my art destination of choice. Being on the doorstep of central London, we are raising and developing the creative profile of Walthamstow’s artistic community as well as delivering a quality arts attraction to the city.”

The debut exhibition will be dedicated to Nadiya’s body of original cityscape paintings of London, entitled Lost & Found, and will be open to the public from March 25 to May 28, every Thursday to Saturday, or by appointment. Following that, the gallery will showcase work from other emerging talents, both British and international. Tokarska Gallery will also be a host gallery this September during the E17 Art Trail, which holds over 200 exhibitions and events in open houses, studios, galleries, streets and gardens.

Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area

The Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area now has its own page on the Diocesan website (click here) which enables viewers to see the Art Trail leaflet online.

The launch of the Art Trail generated local publicity, some of which can be viewed by clicking here and here.

Father Benjamin Rutt–Field, Priest at St Paul’s Goodmayes which hosted the launch event, said: “We had a good turnout, there was a broad mix of people; people from the Christian faith, from the congregation, from the Redbridge deanery, a very influential spectrum of people from all different angles.”

“The hope is that people will engage with the church in ways other than just coming in for their normal service, which may put some people off.

“We also want to make people aware that the church is now, and always has really, been a great patron of the arts, and there is great wealth of local talent and local art in the community. So we just want to make people aware that it’s here and people can come and enjoy it.”

Mark Lewis, who researched and wrote the Art Trail leaflet said: “We discovered amazing diversity out there and some incredible surprises; it was quite obvious there were some stunningly beautiful pieces that deserved to be better known.”

“Good sacred art is also like poetry and has many layers of meaning.”

Safety Helmets Must Be Worn

Richard Baxter is taking part in the exhibevent Safety Helmets Must Be Worn at Artistsmeet.

Safety Helmets Must Be Work explores how sketchbooks inform and develop creativity and practice by exploring the construction of a sketchbook through the metaphor of building and construction work via the channelling of tunnels, laying foundations and embedding of networks. Artists Books, sketchbooks, and all compass points between are explored and presented: log book, journal, an engine room, a place to store ideas, images, artefacts, experiences and memories, a place of exploration. This exhibition aims to explore a newly-recognised and rapidly expanding genre of artwork.

Richard's contribution is three little sketchbooks described as follows:

"CODEX 1-3

Starting on January 1st 2010 I did one drawing a day, and continued every day for the whole year in 3 tiny sketchbooks. This was not conceived as an artwork. I am a potter so some drawings reflect my work. I decided to display the books pegged together to form a circle suggesting the turning of the year. (What a shame that there are 360 degrees but 365 days to go around the year)."

Richard also writes: "I see drawing as an engine-house for the generation of new ideas, so this was the first time that I had made a promise to myself to draw for it’s own sake, and to do it relentlessly every day, no matter how little time I had, or how important or trivial the subject depicted. It became a habit and a discipline. It was a process of taking stock, and finding out for myself what I am interested in, and how I am able to record it."

Artistsmeet  is a critique group for artists to meet and discuss artwork, ideas and exhibitions, to provide a structured, regular, live forum where artists can meet, exchange and evolve together.

Richard's work is also newly on sale at the Craft Centre and Design Gallery in Leeds.