From the Guardian:
A tiny church high above the Tyne valley has beaten off competition from the likes of Canterbury Cathedral to win this year's Art in a Religious Context award from the charity Art & Christian Enquiry.
The biennial award was made for two commemorative stained glass windows commissioned for St John's church, Healey, in Northumberland, by artists Anne Vibeke Mou and James Hugonin.
[Anne Vibeke Mou's window] is a sheet of glass covered with thousands of tiny impact marks made by hitting the glass with a tungsten point, creating swirling, cloud-like forms which can be seen from the outside of the church as well as from its interior. A hard frost can affect her window, giving it an extra layer of depth.
[James Hugonin's] window is made of small rectangles of glass, some transparent and some translucent, mainly red, blue, yellow and green. Although totally abstract, a double helix form can be made out in the patterns of colour.
Since I tend to side with the little guy, I'm pleased that St John's Church won over the likes of Canterbury Cathedral. A brief history of the church may be found here.
Andrew Gormley's 'Iron Man', which hangs in Canterbury Cathedral, was amongst the other finalists.
Pictures of the windows are from Art & Architecture Journal Press.
Photo of the church from geograph.
Thanks to Ann V. for the link.
Antony Gormley gets plenty of attention as it is. I am also pleased the little folk won instead.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous purple flowers in the top piccie. Are they foxgloves?
Cathy, the flowers look like foxgloves to me.
ReplyDeleteDo you like Gormley's sculpture? Perhaps I could like it if it were not suspended in the air, but that may be the point of it, to hang in the air. It seems a bit weird and spooky in the hanging position, although the cathedral may be judged spooky already with all the tombs spread about.
I'm fascinated by that round window (w/ the fanned columns)---never seen anything like that! Is that period or contemporary?
ReplyDeleteI have only ever seen Gormleys in the air and I love them. To me, they are a perfect expression of the embodiment of the spiritual "up there".
ReplyDeleteChurch dates from the 1860's, JCF, so the window is original. Anne Vibeke Mou's window is lovely and is sensitive to its surroundings; the less said about the Hugonin window, other than to credit its creator's craftmanship, the better.
ReplyDeleteFrom another view this morning, Gormley's sculpture in the cathedral looks like a ghost, and I suppose a ghost is 'a perfect expression of the embodiment of the spiritual "up there"', but it's too creepy for my taste. Maybe you have to be there. I like Gormley's Angel of the North far better.
ReplyDeleteThe cloud window is gorgeous, but I like the Hugonin glass, too. Were I a judge, I'd surely have chosen the windows over the Gormley sculpture.
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ReplyDeleteThe Hugonin window reminds me too much of endless 60's "civic architecture" mosaic-by-the-square-foot.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, seeing the windows without the filters, the experience might be quite different.
ReplyDeleteI do love the cloud forms. Stunning when one clicks to embiggen.
ReplyDeleteEach time I look at the embiggened picture of the cloud window, I want to see it up close, and I want to see it frosted with the extra layer of depth.
ReplyDeleteI agree, you do have to see Gormley's in place - it's the way the light plays with the metal, there's so much life in his hanging sculptures, so much movement, that just doesn't come out in pictures.
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