Danielle Lovesey

Tree of Life

Blood shed for us

Danielle Lovesey's work is abstract, bright colours and the use of bold but visually interesting lines and blends of colour. Her focus is on biblical and spiritual imagery for her paintings, seeing an image in her mind she then moves to paint it.

Member's update: Elizabeth Duncan Meyer

Elizabeth Duncan Meyer, sculptor, painter and print-maker, has a new website. Do visit the site in particular for an excellent gallery of Elizabeth's work. 

As stated on the site, "Although a colorist, with a natural tendency towards abstraction and simplification, Elizabeth’s work remains subtle and at a times mystical, interwoven with images reflecting aspects of her soul."

'Run with the Fire' art talks and demonstration

The programme of art talks throughout the day at the 'Run with the Fire' exhibition today provided a broad exploration of approaches to the expression of spirituality in and through the visual arts, while Harvey Bradley provided a practical expression of the same with the painting demonstration.

Mark Lewis quoted Rudolf Steiner, who said that "art is the daughter of the divine," as he began his exploration of 'The Spiritual Image in Art'. He defined spiritual as the "depth dimension in life" as he outlined the way in which the development of abstract art built on the sense of mystery being probed outside of traditional representational Christian iconography by nineteenth century Romantics such as Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner. Early abstractionists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky and Malevich had a sense that the spiritual world was governed by laws which mirrored natural laws and which could be expressed in visual form. Their works imply that there is a hidden logic in nature; a religious symmetry underpinning the material universe. As Plato stated, "God geometrizes." Similarly Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko were attempting to dig into metaphysical secrets by means of non objective art which equated to the 'Via Negativa'. He ended by highlighting the colour field paintings of Michael Finn with their sense of the sublime, density of experience and wonder of light.

Steve Scott quoted Rowan Williams as saying that the one thing he longed for was a "Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture." Scott went on to outline the genesis of the 'Run with the Fire' project which provided the basis for this exhibition and which he hoped, in line with the butterfly effect, might be a small action leading to big effects. He explained how involvement in an arts conference held in Bali had kickstarted the idea of a DVD for the Olympics, initially intended for the Beijing Games and on the theme of guns into ploughshares. When this proved unfeasible for Beijing, other contacts led to Veritasse and commission4mission and the idea of a juried project on the Olympic/Pentecost imagery of fire. The 'Run with the Fire' project attracted 25 international artists and the DVD produced contained both a digital exhibition and a guide to setting up arts events. The DVD was slowly but surely generating new arts projects/exhibitions in various parts of the UK and abroad. The aim was to stay connected as the butterfly effect came into play.

In 'Stanley Spencer: A Visionary for our Time', Mark Lewis described Spencer as a unique non-conformist whose work does not conform to any movement but is a glorious celebration of the sacred in the everyday. Lewis used specific paintings by Spencer to outline his main themes and the development of his work. The two great influences on his work were the Bible and Cookham. He explored with sensual wonder a personal vision of Christianity in which redemption, resurrection and heaven are all now as everyone is embraced and elevated by a love which brings humanity back to God. His experiences during the First World War as a medical orderly brought him into contact with broken, shattered humanity and his work subsequently tried to recover a paradise lost.

In 'Praying with our eyes open' Glenn Lowcock began with the yearning of the Psalmist to see the face of the hidden God. God's invisibility could be associated with displeasure and doubt but also with renewal (Elijah on Mount Carmel) and searching (the Shekinah story of the presence of God being like scattered sparks buried deep in the world). John Berger wrote in Ways of Seeing that visibility is simply to do with seeing but also of being seen. God's seeing of us is part of his active creating. The hidden God became visible in Christ meaning that sight and images become a new way of approaching God. In the Eastern Church this leads to Church Art becoming one of the five sources of Church Tradition. Pavel Florensky writes of icons as a window through which the divine is seen in prayer. The conversion of St Francis began with scripture and was confirmed through sight of a crucifix in the Church of St Damiano. Christ's eyes are open on the crucifix which captivated Francis. He is looking into our world, our space. In response, St Francis and St Clare open their eyes wide to gaze on God and on his world. St Clare encourages us to study our face in him.

In 'Emotional Tourist', Steve Scott described his journey from modernism, through post-modernity to a meta-modernity that combines ideas and media, working across mediums through relational processes. The visual depiction of Trinitarian relationality contained in Rublev's icon of the Trinity served as his thesis statement. His 1989 trip to Bali (where shadow play stories from John's Gospel had informed the Eucharist) and his 2011 trip to Isenheim (where Grunewald's altarpiece depicts Christ as co-sufferer with those celebrating ther Eucharist) were the personal bookends to this journey. Within this he had also drawn on relational aesthetics and social applications of open systems processes. His 'Crossing the Boundaries' open systems project with Gaylen Stewart was one result from this thinking and Lilias Trotter had become a role model for his thinking on process, relationship and dialogue. He shared spoken word performances and images on these themes to a backing of sound loops.

Finally, Jonathan Evens pointed to the pervasiveness of religious and spiritual themes in twentieth century and contemporary Western art by giving a whistlestop and inevitably partial tour of these religious themes and some of those artists that have used them. He began with the catalytic encounter of Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin in Brittany in 1888 which resulted in Post Impressionist paintings exploring the Catholic soul of Breton peasants. Bernard and Gauguin shared their new style with Paul Sérusier who, together with fellow art students including Maurice Denis, formed the Nabis. Denis became one of the most significant artists in the French Catholic Revival, being prominent in the Nabis, as a Symbolist, and, through his Studios of Sacred Art, contributing to a revival of French Sacred Art. Denis’ influence was felt among Symbolists and Sacred Artists in Belgium, Italy, Russia and Switzerland, in particular.

A second circle of influence within the French Catholic Revival gathered around the philosopher Jacques Maritain. His book Art and Scholasticism was influential and he organised study circles for artists and others including the Expressionist Georges Rouault, the Surrealist Jean Cocteau, the Futurist Gino Severini, the Dadaist Otto van Rees and abstract art promoter Michel Seupher. His writings were also significant for the community of artists which formed around the sculptor Eric Gill at Ditchling, which included the artist and poet David Jones. Jones further developed Maritain’s ideas of images as signs in his paintings, poetry and critical writings. A third circle of influence gathered around cubist pioneer Albert Gleizes, including Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone (who played significant roles in the development of Modern Art in Ireland) and Australian potter Anne Dangar. Like Eric Gill at Ditchling, Gleizes formed a Catholic arts colony to further his ideas which embraced both painting and society seeking to identify natural rhythms for both.

A final circle of influence developed around the Dominican Friars, Marie-Alan Couturier and Pie Régamey, who insisted that the Roman Catholic Church call for the great artists and architects of their day to design and decorate its churches. The involvement of artists such as Marc Chagall, Férnand Leger, Le Corbusier, and Henri Matisse in churches such as Assy, Ronchamp and Vence was proof of the effectiveness of their approach and ministry. A similar approach was taken in the UK by George Bell and Walter Hussey which saw artists such as Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Hans Feibusch and Cecil Collins decorating churches.

Expressionist artists such as Emil Nolde, Christian Rohlfs and Albert Servaes painted biblical scenes with an emotional intensity that was often more than the institutional churches at the time could accept. Georges Rouault added to this expressionist intensity with a compassionate Christian critique of contemporary society. Italian Divisionism and Futurism also included a strong strand of sacred art through artists such as Gaetano Previati, Gerardo Dottori, and Fillia.

Wassily Kandinsky created abstract art by abstracting from apocalyptic biblical images and felt that abstraction was the best means available to artists for depicting an unseen realm. Kasimir Malevich was not only influenced by the tradition of Russian icon painting but also by the underlying principle of icons – the presence of an Absolute in the world – to develop the Suprematist aim of self-transcendence.

Daniel Siedell writes that “for these and many other avant-garde painters well into the twentieth century, including Russian immigrants John Graham and Mark Rothko, modern painting functioned like an icon, creating a deeply spiritual, contemplative relationship between the object and viewer.” The influence also went the other way too, as Abstract Expressionist William Congdon converted to Roman Catholicism and used this style to create deeply expressive crucifixions.

Iconographer, Aidan Hart, notes that a revival of traditional iconography occurred in the twentieth century; led in Greece by Photius Kontoglou, in Russia by Maria Sakalova and Archimandrite Zenon, and in Europe by Leonid Ouspensky and Fr. Gregory Kroug. More surprisingly, a Lutheran tradition of iconography has also developed in Scandanavia led by Erland Forsberg.

Evangelicalism found artistic expression through the folk art of the American South with artists such as Howard Finster and Sister Gertrude Morgan gaining significant reputations. Such artists have often been both naive and visionary in their style, an approach that also characterised the work of New Zealand artist Colin MacCahon and British artist, Albert Herbert. Other significant visionary artists using Christian themes and imagery have included Stanley Spencer, F.N. Souza, Betty Swanwick, Norman Adams, Roger Wagner and Mark Cazalet.

In response to the growth of Christian Art on the Asian continent, the Asian Christian Art Association was founded in 1978 to encourage the visual arts in Asian churches. Australia encouraged contemporary religious art through the establishment of the Blake Prize in1951. From that date until the present, its judges have chosen as prize winners artists and works which reflect the movement in Modern Art from the figurative to the abstract. Wojciech Wlodarczyk notes that one special aspect of Polish Art in the 1980s was its links with the Roman Catholic Church. Martial law forced the entire artistic community to boycott official exhibition spaces and instead places of worship hosted exhibitions. This period was marked by a profound interest in the whole question of the sacrum in art and was characterised by the work of Jerzy Nowosielski with its thoughts on the nature of religious art.

There has been extensive use of Christian imagery by BritArt artists such as Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Mark Wallinger, and Sam Taylor-Wood. In their work, Christian iconography and narrative is often used as a frame for the artist’s critique of contemporary life including politics and culture. Finally, on this whistle-stop tour, the work of Lynn Aldrich, Betty Spackman, Peter Howson and Makoto Fujimura provide examples of artists expressing aspects of their Christian faith through work accepted and understood within the mainstream world of contemporary art.

As issues of religion have been largely overlooked in the social and cultural history of twentieth-century art, we need, as curator and author Daniel Siedell has argued, "an alternative history and theory of the development of modern art, revealing that Christianity has always been present with modern art, nourishing as well as haunting it, and that modern art cannot be understood without understanding its religious and spiritual components and aspirations." 

Chandrakumar Sukumaran

 

Chandrakumar Sukumaran was born in Kerala (Attingal) in south India and came to England in 1980. He gained an HNC / HND in graphic design through Barking College and a BA in graphic media design at the University of the Arts, London (London College of Communication) while dealing with the effects of dyslexia. His dissertation was on the depiction of Christ in film. He likes writing scripts for short and feature length animations and has an ability to use colour in harmonious way in design and creative art. His work has been published in a graphic design book for students by Alan Swann. He has used the flexi plastic ID card with acrylic paint to create most of his recent work; this is animation to canvas painting and is called the miracle code.

Michael Creasey's BASH exhibition

Michael Creasey will be exhibiting at the Visual Arts Centre in Frances Bardsley School, Romford as part of the Big Arts Submission Havering (BASH) programme. Michael's exhibition runs from 23 - 27th August beginning with a Launch Night from 7 - 9.00pm on 23rd and continuing from 9.30am - 3.00pm.

Michael is a largely self-taught artist, specializing in portraits and figurative work, mostly nudes. He says, "I am not especially a religious painter, as I mainly paint portraits and figure studies, but I do also paint abstract works which tap into emotional and spiritual aspects of my life and reflect my Christianity."

Reflect: Sergiy Shkanov

Sergiy Shkanov

Sergiy with visitors to the exhibition

'Easter Soon'

Sergiy Shkanov's summer exhibition at St Andrew's Leytonstone, part of the Reflect programme run by the church, will end after tomorrow's 10.00am Mass. The exhibition reflected aspects of the diversity of Sergiy's work with abstract, figurative and symbolic work all featuring. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sergiy graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Printing before studying stained glass and the restoration of oil paintings at Richmond College, London. He has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, participated in group shows across Europe, and held personal exhibitions in the UK. He writes: "My concern in art is as old as the world itself - to introduce to our world something that will not destroy, but construct it. The artist is like the emptiness of a flute, through which a sound goes resulting in the creation of music. In our contemporary world there is too much violence and too little love. There should be something to oppose this. I choose art as a means of resistance."

Adam Boulter

The prologue to John: yet the world did not know him, Monoprint on paper 8"x10"

Jesus is Made to Bear His Cross, 11"x15", Oil

Adam Boulter writes:

"My work has two dominant tensions. The first is between the abstract and the figurative, where we work out if the world is as we see it and find out how we make the world seem to our selves. The second is between the exterior space where we encounter others and the world, and the interior space where we encounter ourselves. I have found that the tension and space created by these two sets of tensions forces me to notice God. Much of my work has revolved around landscape and religious themes. It is concerned with a sense of belonging and of the sacred in places as diverse as the inner-city and deserts, and in ancient stories, myths and sacred texts."

BA Theology: Cambridge
MA Drawing: Kingston
BA Fine Art: Bath
Foundation: Central St Martins

Adam has exhibited frequently in and around London.

Elizabeth Duncan Meyer

Saint Robert by Night, 2006, Oil on canvas

Maternity No. 5, 2005, Polished Oak

Elizabeth Duncan Meyer's work is influenced by abstract expressionism based on landscape and the human figure. She uses many prophetic forms in sculpture, wood and stone.

Elizabeth writes:

"I have always been interested in the spiritual in art, using biblical figures and dreams. I am now involved in a series of etchings based on music. I have exhibited in churches, given paintings (i.e. Servite Priory in Fulham), and made a wooden crucifix for a Benedictine Monastery. I would be very interested to do a commission for Stations of the Cross in ceramic sculpture. The Madonna and Child comes into a lot of my sculpture."

Having studied at the Central School of Art, she moved to Paris to learn print-making at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the studios of William Hayter and Henri Goetz. Although a colourist, with a natural tendency towards abstraction and simplification, her work remains subtle and at times mystical, interwoven with images which reflect her passions, as, for example, the spirituality she finds through exploring the deep human relationships of mother and child.

Stations of the Crown of Thorns commission

Stations 10, 14 & 15

Stations 6, 7 & 8

Stations 1, 2 & 3

Henry Shelton has completed work on 12 of the 15 Stations of the Crown of Thorns which have been commissioned for St Paul's Goodmayes. A frame is currently being constructed for the tryptich of Stations 11, 12 and 13 which Henry will paint in situ and which will complete the commission and create the central focus of the scheme.

In this semi-abstract scheme, Christ is represented solely by the Crown of Thorns. The colour scheme of the Stations harmonises with the existing stained glass windows within the church and provides an emotional register for the Stations themselves. The additional Station represents the risen Christ in the form of bread and wine and will be located in the Lady Chapel.

Anne Creasey

'St. Paul' (from fragment of altar panel, Basilica of San Vincente de Avila, 12th Century) and 'Peace'


'Consider the Lilies'

Anne Creasey is a textile artist and embroiderer working in a variety of styles from traditional to abstract and experimental. She is very interested in helping people discover their spirituality through the creative process.

As an amateur painter, Anne rarely produced religious art but, six years ago, she gave up painting to concentrate on embroidery and textile art which were, for her, more natural media for expressing religious ideas and imagery. She has one criteria and that is to create something of beauty.

Her work includes traditional embroidery, appliqué with painted fabric and includes a large range of materials, from yarns and threads to plastic bags. If it can be sewn down, it can be used! Subject matter includes the figurative and the abstract. Anne prefers to produce wall hangings as she likes to work on a fairly large scale. Panels are usually, but not always, framed without glass so as not to lose the textural qualities of the piece.

Michael J. Creasey

Spire, Gethsemene & Annunciation

All Saints & St Faiths Church, Childerditch

Michael J. Creasey is a largely self-taught artist, specializing in portraits and figurative work, mostly nudes. He also paints abstracts. He works primarily in acrylics, but also paints watercolours, and has recently returned to oils after a long break. He keeps up a regular regime of life-drawing, which he sees as central to his work.

Michael has exhibited locally in Havering and at the Mall Galleries and elsewhere, and has undertaken many portrait commissions. Though not primarily a religious artist, he has a wide knowledge of art history and is interested in the way art has been and should continue to be employed by the Church. Sutherland and Piper are important influences.

Though he sees his abstract works, of all his output, as most embodying a 'spiritual' dimension, he is at present working on more overtly religious subjects, as a result of his membership of commission4mission.

Michael says, "I am not especially a religious painter, as I mainly paint portraits and figure studies, but I do also paint abstract works which tap into emotional and spiritual aspects of my life and reflect my Christianity."