The Angels Who …

Re-Formation Exhibition

22 July – 6th October 2019

A fine art exhibition taking place with Somerset artists at the Bishop’s Palace and Heritage Courtyard Gallery, Wells

As well as the Seraphim (The Watcher) which hangs on the outside cafe wall at the Bishops Palace, I made two small angels for the exhibition. These are displayed at the Heritage Courtyard Gallery, Sadler Street, Wells.

Again, inspired by the Reformation!

One of the aims of the Reformation during the 16th Century was to stop Catholic idolatry. The Puritans especially opposed the use of ornaments and ritual as the practice was believed to promote superstition and hypocrisy, therefore many religious icons were destroyed. My two angels are a playful  analogy of this story set within our modern consumerist society. 

When I googled “expensive things” , some of the first pictures that came up were the gold toilet at Blenheim Palace, some quite beautiful gold toilet paper, and gold pills that you can swallow to make your poo turn gold!!!  FFS…Really, do rich people actually use them? (What happens then, do you scoop it out of the toilet and keep the poo in a gold plastic bag or flush it so eventually it will go into the water course for a gold panner to find?) At least the latter is one way to spread the wealth!

I made some gold pills using clay, paint and metal leaf to pop into the belly of the angel.

I made the face with clay, paints and varnish. I made several versions and whatever I did they still seemed to look like President Trump!  How very strange…!

This one doesn’t though…

That makes sense!

😉