It's thrilling to see Chris Gollon's work in a Cathedral which has a well-established vision for the arts; it's fitting that this show opens during the first week of the Festival of Chichester.
From Guildford onwards, this company of women grows cathedral by cathedral. It's been overwhelming to see how Chris has responded to Canon Anthony's suggestion to paint an image of Judas' Wife.
Before I say something about women, Mary and Incarnation, I want to talk about Chris. I often say on such occasions, that he has a tremendous capacity to hold "moments" in narratives: moments of decision, exhaustion, tenderness and violence. He draws us into moments in time, an intensified present, as we anticipation a resolution.
Chris does this by paying attention to words & the gaps in stories, to anonymous women and those we think we know. He reflects our humanity in these particular women: sexuality and power, grief and tenacity, prayer and desire. It's all laid bare.
I'm not going to tell the stories for you: read about them, interact with them and be interrogated by them. Look, wait, walk away; respond to what you find compelling or provocative; see what unfolds.
Chris Gollon - The Marytrdom of St Cecilia (1st Version) 2014
We can't avoid the physicality of these women: bruised skin, tear stained eyes; hands that touch, hold, accuse, protect; cries that are heartrending, ear-piecing and silent. Paying attention is more than looking at these women. Chris makes us wait with the infamous, iconic and unknown; Hannah, Cecilia, Mary Magdalene, the women of Jerusalem, and the many nameless wives. Their loves and losses interact with ours. Our now meets their fear and potential.
Chris's diptych manifests these layers of recognisable human story. In Madonna & Child we see intimacy of a mother cradling an infant son, in a glow or radiant light. Mary holds the one who is God with us. She also holds an apple. An echo of Eden - goodness, creation, freedom and abundance; a reminder of temptation, our misdirected desires and capacity to wound others. In Mary's hand it becomes a sign of God's faithful love Rather than abandoning us, he reaches out to us. This is the mystery of incarnation; God becoming flesh of our flesh.
Chris Gollon - Madonna & Child 2013
Dare we make sense of this we can only make sense of this as we look on Judas' Wife. Chris holds this dark moment, encapsulating all we fear. Her expression conveys the visceral pain of grief and incomprehension and the chaos of suicide. This woman has lost her husband: life forever disrupted, diminished, made other. This woman faces confronts Judas' part in Jesus death: a burden of alienation for which heart-break is too weak a word.
Chris Gollon - Judas' Wife (First Version) 2015
Judas dies; Jesus dies. We wait. We endure. Grief is overwhelming. A woman howls; a woman cradles her dead son.
In Chris's Pieta, which Lord Harries describes as being prayerful and hopeful, we see the cost of love: her son lives, suffers and dies for us. We see the unimaginable grief of Mary bearing the dead weight of her child. And yet, in the fragility and resilience of her prayerful composure, we glimpse something of the beyond breaking in, what we might call grace, otherness, transcendence or the divine. It's a love that restores us, gives us new life. Incarnation is the ultimate expression of love, actually.
Chris Gollon - Pieta (2013)
The graced-ness we see is the enduring power of a love that will not let us go; that will not stop forgiving. Love that reaches to the depths of taking life; and mourning death. Love we glimpse in gestures these women make; the pauses we hold; new life that breaks in, like the dawn light rising as Mary Magdalene lies in exhaustion face at the foot of the cross. This isn't the ending we expected.
Thank you Chris for opening up new horizons of incarnation, Mary and these women; for letting us explore love, intimacy, grief and renewal.
Thank you for allowing us to ask: What sense to we make of this? What meaning do we find in this?
© Julie Gittoes 2015
At the end of the talk, Canon Dr Anthony Cane spoke about the research he done on Judas for his PhD (now published by Ashgate) and he explored the way in which he was given a back story - including his wife. He talked about the way in which she was presented as Eve, tempting or persuading Judas to betray Jesus. He asked whether Chris had thought of pursing such an approach, because the final painting conveyed something very different.
Chris responded by talking about the different versions he had painted, but whcih didn't feel right because she looked too pleased with herself (whatever her complicity with Judas' actions). He went on to consider the impact of what I had described as a double bereavement; resulting in an image that liberates Judas' Wife from the negative mythology. It gives her an expression that is overwhelming and intense about the nature of grief. Canon Anthony responded with refelctions on the pastoral side of his ministry - in relation to death, but also in relation to the accute grief in relation to suicide.
A question from the audiance picked up on the suffering and pain in Chris's work and asked about having more about the resurrection. I responded on how resurrection is rarely sudden and painless; and that Chris draws us into what we call Holy Saturday, a time of waiting and uncertainty. I felt that Chris gives us hints of resurrection and renewal - in his use of light and in the sunrise surrounding Mary at the base of the cross. Chris's work has an honesty about it in relation to human experience of death, suffering and hope; but he also makes us work quite hard at glimpsing and thinking through what we mean by resurrection.