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For some time I had been working on small
paintings that, in a sense, rediscovered illuminated manuscripts
and how the masters that created them approached their subject.
The storytelling is very direct, the picture plane flat
and the colours strong with a good deal of gold.
I was also (and still am) very interested
in early Renaissance painters and mosaicists such as Cimabue,
Duccio, Giotto. Their influence and style was feeding into
my work, albeit at a very unsophisticated level.
During the summer of 2000, I was commissioned
by the Diocese of Oxford to make a series of work relating
to Advent. This involved painting four pieces taken from
selected passages. These summarized the development of my
'illuminations' so far (first four paintings above).
The fifth painting is a commission for the
cover of the book 'Sharing Life Through Advent'. It is quite
interesting to see these together, as four years had elapsed
between Annunciation and Modern Advent. The style, I think,
has become much more sophisticated and dynamic, and the
colours much stronger, and it is not until you see them
next to each other that you begin to realise how far you
have traveled.
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Pictured on exhibition at West Berkshire Community Hospital |
