LIGHT

ARTIST STATEMENT by Kirsty Lorenz

This artwork presents an image of a flowering sun, surrounded by a circular concrete poem. The image is based on a model I created of a globe of ‘Cat’s Ear’ (Hypochaeris radicata), a common wild flower, often mistaken for a Dandelion. The Cat’s Ear flower is a resonant yellow and it opens and closes with the arrival and departure of the sun. For me the concept of ‘Revelation’ relates to a feeling, something I associate with a sense of connection to nature, a resonance, an inspiration, a burst of energy. Plants and flowers are the central subject of my artistic practice anyway, and for this project the sun and light and yellow and the circle were also significant to me. The text is a poem created in a separate collaboration with the poet Rebecca Sharp. It is a healing ‘spell’, a bit like a prayer: ‘the forms of light give form to light’. This poem inspired all of my TheoArtistry group and we created a ‘sigil’ of it which is a visual symbol based on the text (the sigil is reported before the Research commentary). This symbol signifies the connection we all found through our collaboration.

ARTIST STATEMENT by Liz Crichton

Light is the essence of life itself. Always present, though not always tangible, without light there would be no living organisms, on which our existence depends. Light not only sustains us, it also reveals to us our surroundings and enables us to read written words, providing enlightenment for our minds.

Deeper insight, however, demands that we unknow what we know, to see the truth that is before us. Truth is dependent on reality. Belief in the truth of the text requires it to correspond to our experience of reality. The boundary of that experience is the present, yet knowledge pertains to the future. Thus, knowledge needs a grasp what has not yet happened. Revelation, the seeing of the soul, requires an understanding of the reality of experience as a means to transcend that experience.

This installation, initially exhibited where historically The Citizen newspaper was edited, and then latterly in an ecclesiastical building where the Word of God is read and expounded, compares and contrasts the relationship between intellectual knowledge; that which we know from reading biblical accounts in scripture and reports of other people’s experiences in the media with the reality of our own lived experience, as a way of offering new understandings of our existence, and grasping at the ineffable, that which is beyond our current experience.

ARTIST STATEMENT by Karen McClain Kiefer

Most Tuesday mornings during lockdown, I sat in the same choir stall in Saint Andrew’s church to say and broadcast morning prayer. From this vantage point, in the early-ish morning hours, I often was incredibly moved
to catch the first rays of sunlight streaming through the high rose window above, casting light on the prayer book in front of me during my favourite part of morning prayer: the last two verses of the Canticle of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79), aka, The Benedictus:

In the tender compassion of our God,
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The tender image of in-breaking light felt like an encouraging embrace, promising that the day is bursting with meaning and worth living to its fullest. In the last line I heard an encouraging sending forth on a kind of pilgrimage.

Afterwards, I would venture out, on my ‘lockdown pilgrimage’ – the labyrinthine walk that became an essential spiritual ritual. Hence, this morning canticle became a ‘Pilgrim’s Canticle’, the dawn from on high inspiring and then calling me to move into the world. The promise of my feet being guided ‘into the way of peace’ felt like being equipped with a walking stick and map for the journey.

This canticle also brings to mind the Advent Antiphon O Radiant Dawn, as both texts point toward the light of the Incarnation.

RESEARCHCOMMENTARY by Karen McClain Kiefer, Kirsty Lorenz & Liz Crichton

Light – as the essence of life, and as that which reveals by its very existence – is the connecting thread among our TheoArtistry group. The theme of ‘Revelation’ elicited features of light from the imagination of all three of us, from sunlight and dawn to illumination and enlightenment, among other inspirations. The images of flowers unfurling, pilgrims journeying, people praying or questioning what is real, all turning and opening towards the light, emerged from our various connections to the theme. The forms of light that give life can make the flowers grow, guide the pilgrims’ steps, inspire hope, and transform our perspective.

To mark this connection, we settled on the simple phrase ‘The forms of light give form to light’ from a poem by Rebecca Sharp that inspired, and has been integrated into, Kirsty Lorenz’s work Healing spell. From Sharp’s phrase we created a sigil, a symbol generated by using the consonant letters in a chosen phrase to build an image that can represent the meaning of it. The sigil (reported in black and white on the previous page) can be used as a token, carried with you for as long as it bears significance, or put in a dear place. When a time comes to let go of the
image, you can release it (burn it, dissolve it, bury it, etc.) to mark its significance in your journey.