In the Spring of 2021 Gerard Le Feuvre, leader of the Kings Chamber Orchestra, asked me to create a painting to accompany their version of How Great Thou Art. I recorded myself painting over a few sessions in a variety of shots, documenting the development of the image. I sent this footage to another member of the Orchestra, Mary Young, who edited it together for their online concert to be streamed that Easter. 

Their rendition of the hymn is an improvisation based on the themes from the original Swedish folk song. When I paint with worship music I like to improvise as well, for the image to reveal itself to me in the process of painting. My hope is that the freedom of this approach gives the Holy Spirit room to speak.

The scenario I was trying to evoke was that of standing on a mountainside looking down at the trees and gentle brook below and glimpsing the stars through the clouds above. But the Landscape element is only half the story. While the first two verses are about being in God’s amazing creation, the last two verses are about how much more awesome is His salvation through Christ.

This other side of the story is harder to depict. It’s more majestic in spirit but His methods of salvation are more humble - it probably had to be to combat the pride of sin. So I scrawled the lyrics of the other two verses on the back, loosely painted on the raw brown of the wooden panels. I hoped it might enrich the paintings with this spirit of the writer’s original message. 

The double panel technique was originally inspired by a mathematical idea to resolve the edges of a plane, creating a sort of loop that helps me consider the full surface of the canvas. When I realised this is essentially how wallpaper or fabric patterns are designed, it became an important reference. There is a sense of freedom that comes with dispensing with the edges that is perhaps good for improvisation but also another kind of limitation, placing you in a repeated space of sorts. When you have a fragment of an image, like a window to a scene, you can unconsciously imagine the rest of the world beyond it but when you are presented with a whole space, wrapped up, it becomes harder to imagine a world beyond. It’s like a virtual space or another dimension. 

Mary created some interesting effects during the opening studio shot. She superimposed moving images of the orchestra playing the piece onto some preparatory sketches I had on the wall in front of me, to represent the influence I gained from their improvised worship pieces I listened to as I painted. And as I’m painting, many brushes in hands begin to appear. I think this was to portray the idea of painting in the Spirit or tapping into something outside of our usual dimensions in worshipful creativity. In some prelude shots of nature a ghostly image of a paintbrush in a hand appears, swirling around, almost stroking the tree branches and mountaintops, drawing parallels between God’s creation and the artist in their studio; emulating and giving glory to God in their creative act. 

In the Summer of 2022 the orchestra decided to perform the piece again at my local church. This time the painting could really be there. So Mary edited a simplified and silent version of the video to play behind them. The candlelit atmosphere meant the light of the screen cast a subtle golden glow all around and when the musicians strolled down the aisles the music surrounded you as well and made quite a surreal and immersive experience. There was a pleasant juxtaposition in the detail of the close ups of the surface on a big screen with the modest, almost sculptural presence of the painting nearby. One of the musicians said the video was quite inspiring to play to; lovely feedback because of the inspiration I found painting to their music. 

Hymnal, 2021. Acrylic on Board, 38x23cm each.