Torch, Victoria, Australia

I’ve writeen a lot in my newsletters about the work of Torch, but realised that it would be good to share their work more widely. Torch says of itself “We provide art, cultural and arts industry support to First Nations people currently in, or recently released, from Victorian prisons. Our aim is to reduce the rate of reoffending by encouraging the exploration of identity and culture through art.” Torch has put on two exhibitions which have taken our breath away by their truth and the evidence of the transformations from their work.

The first experience we had was seeing the Blak In-Justice Exhibition at Heide Gallery, just on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne. We were speechless, often in tears, as the artwork told the story of person after person who experienced prison and who, in the middle of that experience, were encouraged to tell their stories. I encourage you to read through the website to undersand the spelling and meaning of the word Blak. This painitng, Brush with the Lore, is the best illustration I’ve ever seen of the negatice impact of Colonial Missionary work:

For some who are incarcerated, contact with the Torch program has helped them trace their ancestry; a significant number ot people in Australian jails are First Nations People. The website reports, “First Nations Australians make up 3% of the Australian population yet represent 32% of the national adult prison population. Indigenous men are 17 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous men and First Nations women are 25 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous women. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, incarceration rates for Indigenous Australians have more than doubled and deaths in custody have continued to increase.”

The work of Torch helps people connect to their own First Nation, connect to their country, connect to their totems and to their hope. If you visit Victoria, please find an exhibition . We await We Sit in Circle.

Arrival

Here we are. My first signed new painting in Australia. Called Arrival, it started in the UK and took years (!). It started as a copy of a drawing I did whilst being Artist in Residence, but that’s always a bad idea for me. The inspiration was too long a time before a reworking. I changed ideas, painted them out, changed it to portrait, changed it to landscape, even gave it a working name. Then I wrapped it up to come to Aus, with no idea of what would happen to it. If you follow my newsletters, you know that in February I made space to paint which I really love. By April, no painting. Then a plasterer arrived to work on our ceiling and asked me if I was the artist in the house (my work is all over the place). I admitted it, then he asked to see my studio. Well, I had to go and properly unwrap my brushes, paints and tools, didn’t I? Then I decided to warm them up on the big canvas…just to see how it would go. Suddenly it all started to happen and got its name. The next few times I keep going, confirming the dots, a traditional central Aboriginal motif, and realised that what I call the Divine, Aboriginal people call the Dreaming. I knew that I was being called to live in Australia for a whole host of reasons and the painting became my depiction of call, of travel, of arrival. One last change of direction, to upside down, and it all made sense.

The photo of the whole piece is from my phone in the studio, so a good shot will arrive in due course. Here we are. Arrival.

PCKorea's Living Word

Over the years, I’ve been commissioned to create a wide variety of artwork, from book and web illustration to event illustration, to Biblical interpretation, to worship theme, to gifts for other churches and more. Today, I pick out Living Word, an artwork I created in pencil and ink as the URC’s gift to the Presbyterian Church in Korea for a special visit to Korea in 2015. I still love it. Below is the image followed by my narrative of how I saw/see it.

Living Word

Uniting every church is the Gospel, found in the Word of God, Jesus Christ.  The logo of the Presbyterian Church of Korea focusses on this most particularly, overlaying the cross of Christ on the scroll of the words in which we have found His story. I rested with this symbol for quite a while and then realised how uniting the Word is.  I thought of the scrolls of the Hebrew scriptures, read by Jesus to proclaim his identity.  From that Word is the life blood of all of our Churches.  The scrolls in this piece are not so like the Hebrew scrolls with their wonderful holders and cases; they are more open scrolls, shining with warm light, indicating the Light which comes from the Word.  The writing on these scrolls works across one scroll and down the other, hinting to the variety of written language we use to share the Word with each other. The scrolls almost look alive and the words on the scrolls eventually mingle, almost falling off; our words help us meet and mingle with one another. 

The cross of the United Reformed Church has taken on a life of its own, reaching in and growing out of the Light of the scrolls.  Both crosses are vibrant, both logos are almost alive in themselves, losing the symmetry of their original design.  Rather than flat two dimensional shapes – present on letterheads and books – the logos have become three dimensional, brimming with life, sending Light in all directions.  The relationship between the United Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church of Korea is fluid, open, and ready for more life.  A Living Word is lived and proclaimed.

Living Word

Watercolour, watercolour pencil and ink

2015

©Elizabeth Gray-King and The United Reformed Church

And It Was Good

As my last blog mentioned, we couldn’t bring anything wooden to Australia if the wood was rough or not constructed into something by a carpenter or factory. This meant that 300 year old untreated Yew was definitely off the list! As that is some of the canvass stretcher for And It Was Good, that meant we needed to find a home. We chose with about 2 seconds of thought as the recipient was so clear. A dear friend who camps out in the woods, lives on the canal and adores nature and all things ‘real’ popped into our brains and there remained. We passed over the treasure on a dark night in Cambridge in September last year. It feels forever ago and we are delighted that And It Was Good has such a perfect home.

And It was Good was painted a while ago now and was what I was working on at Oxford’s Artweeks in 2007. Sitting at my stool with paints outside Oxford Prison was an amazing experience and I always think that painting outside inspired a lot of what eventually grew on the canvas. You can read about it here. The photo on the website is not very good (!) because though Pete did a fine job with the camera, I did a terrible job of removing the background! The painting is very three dimentional and removing my old brick studio wall was a task too tricky for this not very good Photoshop user.

The prints Clear Start, Night Sky and Creating Wand are details from And It Was Good and not only sold well during the 2023/24 tour, are still available for order. Do see my prints page.

Earth Mother has a Foster Carer

When we were preparing our goods for shipping to Australia, we learned the customs rules and talked with our shippers. We realised we couldn’t ship any wood which hadn’t been manufactured in controlled factories or by registered carpenters. When we asked Stef to frame Earth Mother in raw oak, we didn’t realise way back then that we were banning her from Australia! As she had travelled with us in the Spirit Justice tour, a name from Aberdeen kept popping into my head. We’d seen him watching her. This is from Aberdeen’s Methodist minister, now serving in North Wales. James says:

“Earth Mother hangs opposite my desk in my study. She is a constant reminder of the wonderful ecumenical cooperation between Aberdeen Methodist Church and the Aberdeen URC congregation in hosting your Spirit Justice exhibition in July 2024. It is a reminder of the working relationships that developed, of the conversations that this (and other) paintings inspired, and of the way you described your calling as a ‘visual theologian.’ This really helped me in my thinking about the role of creativity in church life (with my particular interest in music). 

What first caught my eye about Earth Mother was her likeness to my daughter, particularly as the maelstrom of creation is cradled in her arms in a way reminiscent of my daughter holding her daughter. The facial expression, to me, expresses a subtle mix of tenderness and concern. It is, I suppose, a prayerful look. 

What I find most powerful about the picture (as in a number of your Spirit Justice paintings) is the juxtaposition of canvass and frame. The swirling circle of creation contrasts with the solid rectangle of the rough-wood frame. The softness of the figure and its colour likewise forms a marked contrast with its surround. And the way in which the canvass sits on glass within the frame is wonderful in the way that it is both transparent and reflective. We see Earth Mother drawn into the context of our surroundings, just as we are drawn into the swirl of creation, to be held in tender, prayerful concern. 

What has surprised me about the picture in hanging it here, compared with how I saw it in the exhibition, is how dark the tones are. I haven’t been able to find a place where the light really works as I would like it to, and so have to look quite closely at the picture to see the detail. Again, it is the darkness of the shadows in contrast with the lightness of the expression on the woman’s face that speaks so powerfully to me of hope.”

I’m delighted that she has such a home. Here is my description of Earth Mother.

Nativity Tancred has a home in Liverpool

I was going to write to you about Nativity Tancred and many of you already know that he has a welcome home in Liverpool. But some of you don’t know so I decided to keep us all up to date. I was also going to write this myself, but the Open Table Network did such a fine job that I asked for permission to share their blog post with you. Here it is:

10 Sept

[the photo below is] Artist Elizabeth Gray-King with her painting Nativity Tancred, which she delivered to St Bride's Liverpool last month at the end of the year-long Open To All touring exhibition. 

AN ART EXHIBITION which travelled cathedrals and town centre churches for a year ended last month with the donation of the centrepiece painting to the church where Open Table began.

Fine artist and theologian Elizabeth Gray King showed 13 intriguing and affirming canvases, exploring the equality and inclusivity of God’s love, at 11 churches across England and Wales between September 2023 and August 2024.

Elizabeth, also a United Reformed Church minister, donated to the Open Table Network [OTN] 40% of the sales of original artworks and prints which people bought because of this exhibition.

On her website in May 2023, Elizabeth announced her plan to work with OTN throughout 2023 and 2024. She said:

‘We decided to work together because we share a commitment to inclusivity in the name of God... If visitors can literally see people in gatherings with no barriers, it may be possible for them to begin to see that not all Christianity is exclusive to a few, and perhaps start believing the Gospel of wide-ranging love.’

The exhibition, called Open To All, travelled from Newcastle and Sunderland , via Liverpool and Manchester, to Coventry in England, then St Asaph, Cardiff and Newport in Wales, and back to England, in London, Winchester and Chelmsford. The focus of the exhibition was Nativity Tancred [pictured]. It shows the face of Jesus, as the artist explains:

‘that penetrating stare from an intensely alive person on a cross, seeing through all and still deepening friendship with those caught in that sight. We read that his body is the Temple of God, and in this image, people of all hues and types stream, welcome, into that locus of Love.… There are none stuck on the outside in this temple.’

A former member of the congregation at St Bride’s Liverpool, the church which hosts the first Open Table community, saw this painting at St Asaph Cathedral while researching a move to north Wales. He had missed the exhibition in Liverpool soon after his mother’s death, and was not expecting to see it in Wales. He described being ‘absolutely riveted’ by Nativity Tancred:

‘THIS was the Jesus I knew and understood… A Palestinian Jew with the majesty of divinity about him. The artist had somehow managed the trick of him being both challenging but wonderfully welcoming at the same time. People were streaming into his warm, dynamic heart. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.’

He was so deeply moved that he bought the original painting, and has loaned it indefinitely to the church which has been his spiritual home in Liverpool, and remains the home of Open Table.

When the tour ended last month Elizabeth personally delivered Nativity Tancred to its new home. She wrote on her Facebook page:

‘At the end of the tour with Nativity Tancred as our signature image to illustrate the exhibition's purpose, he has been anonymously purchased and loaned to the church to perpetually reinforce OTN's message. I could not be happier!!’

Thanks to this generous purchase and others during the tour, the artist donated almost £3,000 to OTN before she [moved to Australia]

Jon's work in Fitzroy

Those of you who follow my newsletter know that we try to go to an exhibition a week. Last week, we managed to go to three (!). Sunday was the Immigration Museum with a fabulous Joy exhibition and Friday was Yayoi Kusama at the NGV. I’ll write about those in next week’s newsletter. Today, I pull out Wednesday’s wonderful experinece into my blog so that you can read about our friend Jon.

Jon is the reason we live in Australia. Jon and our Jeff met in Oxford with Jeff doing music and Jon doing art. Jon came to Aus first, followed by Jeff and the rest, they say, is history. Jon’s wife is the amazing Britt Salt who I’ve written about in my newsletter before. Jon is a wise artist in his own right and has been able to actively pursue his art now that his work life has changed. The exhibition narrarive reads, “Jon Hewitt, born in the UK is a painter living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. He has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art from Oxford Brookes, however only began painting in 2021 following a serious illness. Hewitt practices his art in “Crip-time”, as he lives with post-viral chronic fatigue. Crip-time is to experience a non-normative relationship to linear, chronological time, development, and progress. It means creating alternative ways of navigating an ableist world.”

Wednesday was the opening of Jon’s exhibition as a joint show and it was fabulous. Read here to see more details. https://solgallery.com.au/events/jon-hewit. Jon has given me permission to put my own photos here.