The New Jerusalem, the visionary city, imagined in the Book of Revelation as the eternal environment for redeemed humanity, provided the initial inspiration for the current exhibition of four technology-based art installations by artist-in-residence, Michael Takeo...
Vincent van Gogh arrived in Britain as a young trainee art dealer who then had a spell as a teacher before leaving Britain to pursue a life of religious service. When these hopes too failed his brother, Theo suggested he take up art and the art historical narrative...
Jim Ede was a writer, curator and ‘friend to artists’ who created Kettle’s Yard with his wife Helen Ede, an art teacher, by carefully positioning artworks alongside furniture, glass, ceramics and natural objects, with the aim of creating a harmonic whole. William...
The art of painting is to still time and motion. As a result, the moment at which the artist chooses to freeze time is of real significance. The moments selected by John Kirby are those that reveal dis-ease. Kirby utilizes the static nature of painting to hint at the...
Back in 1977, in the catalogue for ‘Perceptions of the Spirit in 20th-Century American Art’, theologian John Dillenberger argued that Los Angeles County Museum of Art mounting an exhibition with ‘the subject matter of the spiritual in art represents a major shift in...
Violence is to be found everywhere and at all times, even where people pretend that it does not exist. That is the argument made by Jacques Ellul, French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, professor, and noted Christian anarchist. Ellul argues that we must...
What is the nature of chance and accident? In a secular context, chance is a series of entirely random events, while in a religious context such events are understood as, in some way, reflecting the influence or direction of the divine. Are such events merely...
In welcoming the Bill Viola installations at St Paul’s Cathedral, Mark Oakley noted that: ‘Viola’s art slows down our perceptions in order to deepen them.’ Viola’s works, which can be seen at the Royal Academy from 26 January alongside drawings by Michaelangelo,...
A fractious embrace was the subtitle of Jonathan Koestle-Cate’s excellent book from 2016 on Art and the Church, and that remains the case for those seeking to explore the interactions between art and spirituality. My role at St Martin-in-the-Fields involves the...