At St. Mary Aldermary 3rd March – 13th March 2020
Film screening Wednesday 11th March 15:15pm
As the ever-changing metropolis grows unrecognisable through overdevelopment, the churches remain the same. Their slowly-weathering stones carry the vibrations of past lives and events, giving each place a unique energy. London may be asset-stripping to its own destruction, but its people always gravitate toward the quiet spiritual spaces that have existed for centuries.”
For this body of work, I was interested in the way churches have always attracted the same types of people through the centuries – those looking for sanctuary from the city, the spiritual, the homeless, the lost, and the silent watchers.
I painted eleven churches including those of Hawksmoor whose temple-like volumes have always fascinated me. They were built at the edge of the city next to vacant fields and were perhaps the dreadful developments of their day.
My paintings are best viewed in the half-light of a church as they include metallic surfaces that shine in the gloom. They are painted on panel in many layers, sanded, scraped backed and painted again – a process which for me symbolises the strata of time.
In the accompanying film we follow a silent narrator on a journey across London between the churches, where the paintings themselves feature with historical voices. The cinematography is done by acclaimed filmmaker Elzbieta Piekacz, partner of Gram Hilleard as their creative collaboration of two artists: Kochanie & Kochanie