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.

Be Set Free

Here’s another painting which has found a new home in the UK, part of the me I left behind. With pleasure. This is a painting I never expected to sell. At All. It is far too difficult a story. Here’s what I wrote about it https://www.elizabethgrayking.com/be-set-free. Fundamentally, it’s a story of control, of spiritual abuse. The model is a dear friend, a bit the way Andrea Kowch, hyperrealistic painter, paints her close friends to capture close reality. The story is from another close friend, so I heard it with painful empathy. For her sake, I painted this to get her story, anonymously, into fresh air. I worked in and around the edges of Safeguarding in my role with the United Reformed Church for a significant number of years and heard too many stories of the misuse of church for the benefit of those who chose to be abusive. I never expected to sell this painting, but always chose to exhibit it. The story might have helped someone tell their own story. As it turns out, that’s what happened.

The new owner had a number of personal stories I could have painted to bring them into fresh air and destabilise their historic power. Rather than the painting telling of the past for this gorgeous new owner, Be Set Free speaks more loudly to them about the future and a future free from historic shackles. The owner says, “2 Corinthians 3.17 is one I associate with the painting and my life and ministry - ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’. This freedom speaks to me through the painting Be Set Free because the way of Jesus is inviting and not controlling, colourful and beautiful in its challenges not enclosing nor gripping tightly. There is a song by Vicky Beeching with the words from the verse in Corinthians and yet they were written when she was in the closet. She has not been able to sing her songs since. I think partly that’s to do with the rights to her songs and the Christian record label who ‘own’ them. Being set free means from previously held expectations. Being set free by God is a moment by moment unfolding which invites immersion and devotion to God and to the life God has already given each one of us in community. Breaking chains which confine and harm is part of that. For me they are theological and embodied and there is a long way to go so all can be set free and live as free people.”

I am moved beyond imagining that Be Set Free continues to speak and to participate in much needed healing.

One

I promised some while ago that I’d tell you where some of my paintings now live after their wondering to new homes after the 2023/2024 exhibition tours. This is One, finished in 2013. My story of it tells you why I write ‘finished’. https://www.elizabethgrayking.com/one. It is one of my favourites and it keeps giving. All the the poeple in it continue to have conversaitons and if you have a print called Foothill, or Headspace, or Membrance or Conversation, or Loom, or Plait, or Stance, or Burble, or Well, or Floe, you have a part of One. They all have something specific to say from this glorious human form made of hundreds (at least) of other humans of every colour and kind and time. People have told me that they see DNA lines at the bottom and Saints in the sky above. I am deeply moved by what people tell me that they see.

One went to their new home in September 2024, and is hanging in a private collection. I generally prefer public collections, but this particular collection is owned by some very public committed people and have visitors from around the planet for glorious hospitality. The collection has a number of EGK originals and prints and I am told that they generate much conversation. I’m delighted. That, I discovered more than ever last year, is the point of my work.

The owner writes, “My love of it is to do with connectivity, of being part of something bigger but connected. The small print we have is gorgeous in its own right but it is part of a whole. The “whole” is even more striking.“

Yes, the origninal is no longer for sale. But prints of the whole and of One’s smaller details hang in a good number of collections already. You may order any at any time. I still have my fine art printer connections in the UK and in the USA. I’ll find one in Australia soon.

Residencies

Sometimes I get asked, or have been asked, to be the artist in residence at a conference or event. I have to say that this is my number 1 favourite art commission. I simply love it. Before Christmas, I asked my wonderful WebWizard to create residency pages for me from my files and so far, there are two residencies there.

On the introduction page, I’ve explained my process https://www.elizabethgrayking.com/residencies. I turn up, listen, let my brain and heart translate what I hear into images, then I transfer those images into the medium at hand. When I started, the medium was always onto paper of varying colour and texture depending on the atmosphere of what I heard. I used watercolour pencils mixed with felt pens, using the damp felt pens as water to mix with the pencil to make new colours and textures. It was/is so incredibly fun! I use erasers of various sizes to take away colour, often, quite specifically to create light rays as I did in this book illustration called Beauty:

Sometimes I’ve used my Surface Studio computer and Adobe Creative Suite to listen to a digital event and respond digitally. Again, I listen, but this time, I translate via any stroke or colour I can create on Adobe Illustrator. The fun of this method is that if I create a shape I like, I can copy and use it again in multiple ways. This is fabulous for image clarity which I use in my illustrations for web or print.

On some wonderful occasions, I have painted as events unfold as I did at the United Reformed Church General Assembly 2012. I used oil paint mixed with a drying medium to make sure that when it was all done, I could carry it away! The page, thank you WebWizard, is here.