V E S P E R  I  &  II

A night visit to Lincoln Cathedral, its architecture under-lit in gold, gave me initial inspiration for these two paintings, and I hoped to catch something of the mystery found in Whistler’s Nocturnes or Arthur Melville’s velvety blue skies set against the earthy warmth of buildings.

The process turned out quite differently. A new dammar glaze ran wayward across the panels, falling in vertical threads like rain over the glowing spires. I worked with the unpredictability, wiping highlights out with a rag, then waited two weeks for the oil to become touch-dry. Only then, looking at the finished paintings, did I begin to feel that they expressed something more …

Earlier this year my Traces project was shown in Richard Demarco’s Edinburgh Festival programme The Artist as Pilgrim, alongside the work of the wonderful glass artist Patrick Reyntiens, whose Baptistry Window at Coventry Cathedral was made with John Piper.

At the end of September I visited the cathedral for the first time, and found in Basil Spence’s building fear, anger and hope made material: the vast concrete space, the burst of light in the huge window, the spire of the ruined cathedral still rising into the rain. The paintings carry something of that melancholy and defiance. Their title, Vesper, means evening prayers, and is also the old name for the evening star, Venus, the cosmic symbol of love. The two panels will be shown at the Graystone Gallery, Edinburgh, from 14 November 2026, which also happens to be the anniversary of the night Coventry was bombed in 1940.

P A I N T I N G S

B L O G  L I N K S

” … we are trying, hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge…” Vesper and Venus. Architecture of Hope

P L A C E