Capital Outing

Yesterday was unremarkable, just the usual routines of food shopping, a trip to the office to work on some outstanding documents, plus the acquisition of a Tesco Mobile PAYG SIM card for my sister's new phone. It was another cold clear night, with a bright almost full moon that tempted me outdoors trying to get pictures of the almost full moon with a halo and Venus nearby.

When I checked EarthSky, one of the astronomy websites I googled to fnd out about what planets are visible tonight, I discovered no fewer than five planets are visible at the same time this month.

This morning I caught the nine fifteen coach to London, for the preview of old friend Greg Tricker's new exhibition of paintings meditating on Cetic stories, partly myth and legend, partly hagiography, about St Bride, possibly aka St Brigid at the Piano Nobile gallery in Holland Park. As this wasn't to open until the evening, I had plenty of time to visit my sister and deliver her new phone. It turned out that she had an unmissable hospital appointment, so all I could do was use the front door key she gave me ages ago to let myself into the house lobby, and leave the package in her mailbox.

I returned to Victoria, and walked from there down to Westminster bridge, calling in briefly at the diocesan office in Tufton Street to pick up a copy of the current prayer calendar. I took pictures of the statuary in Parliament Square and Whitehall, including the new memorial honouring the women who served in the world wars. A nice piece of work, even if it did require a change of culture and ethos to shape the consensus behind its commissioning.

I had a cup of coffee in Methodist Central Hall, and also visited Westminster Cathedral, to enjoy this great sacred space. After spending time in Spain visiting wonderful church buildings I feel as if I have an extra layer of familiarity with Catholic churches are those who frequent them. Westminster Cathedral is quite an unique building, a Victorian edifice in the Byzantine rather than Gothic manner. It's quite reserved in decoration, yet gives you the same sense as being in an ancient Italian or Sicilan basilica. A wonderful place for liturgy too, but the lunchtime mass was over long before I got there.

An a whim, instead of taking the bus or the Tube to Holland Park, I walked to Pall Mall, then across  Hyde Park towards Notting Hill as the sun was setting. There seemed to be more wild geese foraging than people, and the people were mostly cycling or running, at the end of their working days I guess. It started to rain as I neared my destination so I took refuge in a book shop until it was time for the opening of the exhibition. Greg was there, looking stylish and delighted to greet friends and clientele turning up as invited guests. Bishop Richard Harries was one of them and he gave a brief introductory speech before Greg spoke. Last year Richard Harries produced a book called 'Images of Christ in Modern Art' and Greg is one of the artists whose work he writes about.

I love Greg's work. It embraces a richness of colour and simplicity of form. His human figures are sparsely drawn, though never abstract or fragmented. The eyes are like those in a Byzantine icon which look at you, yet gaze beyond you at the same time in way that is most moving.

You could imagine yourself standing there within the picture, in them or with the subject portrayed, You too could look upon the infinite and live. In this sense, his works are aids to contemplation rooted in classic incarnational spirituality.

The subject of his paintings is often set alone in a minimal landscape or else in a domestic scene like a hearth, a cowshed or a village street among companions. His use of colours, one moment bright and intense the next ethereal and subtle, is what gives each work its uniqueness, conveying a mood or feeling of awe and wonder. 

I've seen hundreds of his works of art over the years, and there's a similarity, in the imagery and symbols he makes use of. It seems to me a self imposed limitation of form, in the same way that the Byzantine iconogaphist constrains subject matter and content. But rather than producing icons that all have a similar appearance and hue, if not content, Greg's exploration of his chosen range of materials takes place primarily through his varied use of colour, texture and surfaces painted upon. This very vibrancy of expression fuels meditation on the image and its meaning.

This is his seventh exhibition at Piano-Nobile. I think I've seen four of his, three here and one in Gloucester Cathedral. He's also exhibited in Peterborough, Salisbury, Westminster and Rheims Cathedrals. The coach back home left a nine, and the M4 was bathed in the light of the full moon as we headed for the Severn Bridge and returned to Wales. It was quarter to one by the time I'd walked the last mile through empty streets and reached the house, sore footed, having walked seven more or more earlier in the day. But, it was well worth a wintry outing to London to see the continued flourishing of an old friend's mystical creativity.