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- Approaching Whitby from the North, Pilgrim’s Arrival
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- Crossing Holy Island Sands
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- Colman’s retreat, Inishbofin from Clare island. West ireland.
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- Holy Island Sands, the first Pilgrim. January.
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- St Cuthbert’s Elevation. Church Hill and Alnmouth. First light.
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- Pilgrim’s route, first light Winter.
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- Low tide isle of Whithorn Scotland
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- Iona from the North
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- Fullmoon and Tide’s turn A Night journey to Lindisfarne.
These exhibitions were timed to celebrate return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to Durham in the summer 2013 and to help raise awareness of this priceless work and its real context. I wished to reintroduce the wider story of the saints and holy men of the old kingdom of Northumbria that the Gospels are a part of. To execute the paintings I walked and explored the wide sweep of lands “North of the Humber” to the Firth of Forth, the area of old Northumbria. I wished to explore this region in the context of the many stories of its saints, who defined its identity and fuelled its outpouring of unrivalled creativity, From their monastery across the tidal waters in Lindisfarne they drew their inspiration from the mission of Iona and fortified the Christian identity of lands outside the region, including Ireland. These paintings are a personal examination of the rich history that can still be discerned in the landscapes of the North, a region bound by centuries of history, an area whose greatest artistic achievement was in the visual arts, the astonishing manuscript of the Gospels.
My journeys and paintings mainly explore and re enact the life and death journeys of St Cuthbert, the early saint who still defines the region. Durham owes its very existence to his shrine. The stories of his life take in some of the regions most wild and remote places. The journey taken by the monks that fled the destruction of Lindisfarne, define the extent of the old kingdom’s boundaries.
13th July- 1st September 2013
Granary Gallery
Berwick on Tweed
TD15 1HJ
Woodhorn Gallery
QEII Country Park Ashington
Northumberland
NE63 9YF
2nd-31st October 2013
Francis Kyle Gallery
9 Maddox Street
London
W1S 2SE