Redemption

Redemption, 2008

Completed in 2008, like ‘Fragmentation’ drawn over 10 years previously, Redemption is a harrowing, metaphysical masterpiece which continues to dissect in greater detail the themes of the previous work. This is not 'feel good' art but that which pulls the viewer into a psychological, relational and spiritual maelstrom. Like so many metaphysical works, here we see the universal struggles and battles of man represented by powerful motifs.

A lot had happened since 1996. I had moved city and country. I had got married. In my attempt to reconcile with the God of my youth I had begun attending a church group. I had also begun to get help and tackle the roots of my alcoholic addiction and depression. Working with drug and alcohol addicts at the time, I was also studying the psychology behind my own addictive tendencies. All of this provided a wealth of material for what would become ‘Redemption’. 

I began the picture with several thick, black strokes of a marker pen on a sheet of A4 paper, which can still be seen in the centre of the piece. I then replaced the marker pen with a Fineliner and the strokes became a Bible, open at Chapter 9 of the book of Isaiah, which is sometimes known as ‘The Glory of the Messiah’s Reign’ or ‘The Government of the Promised Son’. Three of the marker pen strokes then became flaming swords whilst the words of Isaiah 9 transform into insects, attacking the fat dragon to the right of the book, which is about to devour the Christian knight at its mercy, incapable as he is, of fighting, as his feet are in chains. This image was given to me by someone in the church home group I attended at the time whilst the image of the insects was taken from a poem called ‘The Book’ written two years previously.

The words revealed are alive

Rising like ash on a twirling flame

They transform into fireflies

Into sharpened, fighting things

With lightning in their wings

Whirring they ascend

As one body and one mind

A cloud, purified terror

They take themselves to the skies

And the dragon’s scales are falling

As piece by piece he dies

Above the fiery sword on the right-hand side of the Book, a man or woman is being torn apart by a demon masquerading as a beautiful woman within his computer screen. The motivating force behind this rising star in the world of addiction – pornography – is of course Mammon: money, represented by the Euro, Dollar and Pound signs floating above the screen. To the right of the screen the computer mouse transforms into spermatozoa, which flock towards the Goddess Astarte, or Ashtoreth, whose high places, on the mountains of Judah, became the trap for the children of Israel in the Old Testament.

Demons and Celtic knotwork continue to decorate the piece above and below the dragon where churches float around on islands in space, separated from each other, with one represented as a cage to trap people with religion. Another larger cage floats below the Book. This cage door is open, indicating that the figure inside is free to leave but interestingly, the person is either unaware of his or her freedom or else doesn’t want to be free – both reflections on the nature of personal freedom. Next to the caged individual is a small representation of a game of snakes and ladders – life - and the constant rise and fall in the human condition. Below that is a fragment of parchment with the words, ‘histoire d’une famille’ – French for ‘Story of a Family’. I had been studying my own family tree as well as my wife’s in the genealogical sense but had also been looking into the exposing and healing the generational wounds which damage and handicap so many, almost like a curse. To the left, more demonic faces give way to an observer looking into a mirror who sees only a shadow as a reflection, perhaps a dream I had at the time or just an autobiographical sketch.

The left of the artwork is taken up by a triptych on alcoholic addiction. At the top left, a drinker is being strangled by the neck of a bottle, whilst his lifeblood drips away. The head of the bottle is crowned because, for the drinker, it is King and Lord. The crown is surrounded by more money symbols because alcoholism, like any addiction, is big business. Below the bottle there a paradisical island (the promise of alcohol addiction). If you look closely at the island, you can see the prostrate form of a drinker surrounded by bottles and cans. The island has teeth underneath it and becomes a spiral slide, dropping the drinker down into the valley of the dead: whilst the island has changed into one of many shards, impaling the supine bodies of those lying on the floor of the valley.

Yet unlike ‘The Death of Innocence’, there is hope here: a way out. At the top left of the page, an angel carrying someone looks towards a saviour figure who stands with outstretched arms, a door open behind him, whilst a figure kneels in front of him. Between the angel and the saviour figure, a scroll in heaven declares, ‘Idou erchomai taxu’: the Greek script of Revelation 3:11, ‘Behold, I am coming soon!’ whilst above the scroll, three trumpets, three being the number of perfection in Hebraic numerology, sound out ‘Baruch!’ – ‘Praise!’ This recalls the words of Jesus in Luke 15:7:

‘I tell you there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.’

In summary, ‘Redemption’ reveals to us how, in life, we can, like ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in the fairy tale of the same name, stray from the path, becoming lost to ourselves and those around us. Yet, when there seems no more hope, someone arrives to save us: a Saviour, a Redeemer. This is what happened to me and ‘Redemption’ is my artistic expression of that journey. Many of the themes seen here eventually found their way into word form in the 2015-6 art presentation and publication, ‘Poems and Songs from the Bridge’, which was performed around the UK.