How could a visit to a memory clinic result in faces in the light showing in the darkness of the confessional? Well, like many NHS scenarios a question arises about whether you do or have been smoking at any time in your life. It was the response that was a surprise.First the hesitation to respond, and then the nervous sideways look to where I sat, trying to be supportive, but not informing any answers.
Then slowly and hesitantly a story of wartime unfolded. The worst night of the bombings, my mum had been living in London. They had gone down into the Underground. It was so intense that night that mum and a number of her neighbours lit up for the first and last time. You could see in her eyes that she still felt that it had been naughty and that she had confessed at last.
How to capture that?
In our daily chats, mum mentioned that she was enjoying the afternoon programme “Father Brown”. Set post first world war, a story of a priest and his community centred on his relationship with the chief of police in solving the numerous crimes that occur. Being pre-watershed it’s Grantchester without the bare-chests and between the sheets scenes.
In one particular episode the police chief is in the confessional. It struck me how the light was passing through the fretwork and hitting the dust. The confessors face hidden in the darkness and by the grille. The light falling on the face of the person being confessed to. The idea for a painting started to form.
This painting is tonally dark, but actually reflects a moment of light relief. The confessor looking through the confessional grille. We see the the light falling on the face of the listener.
Then the challenge to capture the two portraits, the light and the grill which is a story told here.
Confession
Acrylic painting on shallow canvas 50 x 40 cm. Brushes and a rubber stamp used to give texture and pattern. Confession is in a wood case frame which has been hand-finished in brown brushed with gold-colour. The reddish-brown is just the way the light is creating shadow on the golden inner surface of the case frame. If you want a talking point for your wall the painting is for sale here.
