James David William Clarke
The painting is called Citadel; as in a fortified city, a walled city, a city set apart, a holy city if you will. Not necessarily the holy city but certainly alluding to ancient Middle Eastern or even potential urban projects. I had the idea to paint a holy city a few years ago. I had been painting on canvases of a 5:3 ratio for a few years before that. I find the shape appealing but it also references a cinematic aspect ratio, super 16mm, used by the likes of Stanley Kubrick.
While reading Exodus and the description of the Tabernacle I discovered that the shape of the Ark of the Covenant was also this ratio, 1.5x2.5 cubits. So I became excited about the idea of making a canvas that size. Before I even started painting, there was this holy shape and the ideas I previously had to paint on it did not quite seem holy enough. It was coming up to Easter and I thought holy week was a perfect time to try painting on this canvas. That’s when I thought of painting a holy city; the place where this holy week story happens, like a form of meditation - meditating on this story through painting. I held onto the idea in the back of my mind and I finally got around to painting it last Easter.
This painting is a scaled-up version of a smaller one I’d made the Easter before. I had been invited by the church to do some prophetic painting during the Good Friday reflective service. On the few occasions that I have done this sort of live prophetic painting I quite like to do it in a certain way, to come with few expectations, apart from the hope that the Holy Spirit might speak through the painting, a blank canvas and an open mind. So I just pray and during the worship I put my brush to the board and see what happens. Of course it begins pretty abstract but I start to discern forms and I try to tease them out. I did begin to see buildings and trees; I was enjoying improvising a simple, ancient style, city.
The strange thing was, that as I was painting, the buildings were not all the same angles or perspectives; it was starting to look something like an M.C. Escher. I found this almost troubling, but I carried on. Tim the vicar gave a talk in the middle of the service. He spoke about the Kingdom of God being like a multifaceted diamond. I was encouraged by the thought that a holy city is not an ordinary city so it would not look one, it probably would look quite strange to us. It would exist and operate on multiple spiritual dimensions which would be hard to portray in a two dimensional image.
Around the time leading up to this I was working on a painting for my new nephew, to go in his freshly painted bedroom. I made a panel of 1.5 x 2.5 cubits in size. I was just going to improvise a hazy landscape, when my sister challenged me to prayerfully prophesy into the painting. This did seem to put the brakes on a little. I always feel like prophetic painting sounds so grand. The painting went through a few manifestations. But the sessions that started in the church helped.
When I do this kind of in situ painting, or even en plein air, I quite like to use a select colour palette. I had a few nice pots of paint left over from a couple of murals I had just done for my nieces. I liked the idea of using house paint for painting pictures of buildings. The matt chalky finish renders a nice texture for stone and clay. The colours came from murals I had done which were chosen because of the colours of the carpets. I just think that’s quite funny that a painting with such lofty aspirations had such lowly beginnings.
