Graeme Mortimer Evelyn: Reconciliation Reredos

Title: Reconciliation Reredos
Artist: Graeme Mortimer Evelyn (British/Jamaican)
Location: Altar, St Stephen’s, Bristol (C of E)
Date: 2011

In 2011, as Artist-in-Residence at St Stephen’s, Bristol, Graeme Mortimer Evelyn was commissioned to create a large scale permanent contemporary altarpiece, the Reconciliation Reredos. 

St Stephen’s is one of the oldest churches in Bristol and historically significant as the harbour church that blessed every merchant slave vessel before their voyage. The work was commissioned in 2007, the bicentenary of the UK’s abolition of transatlantic slavery, to replace a set of painted tin panels from 1875 that were considerably corroded. Evelyn’s new panels sit within the Victorian stone relief, flanking the Lamb of God.  

Graeme Mortimer Evelyn is a multimedia visual artist, musician, and curator. His works have been displayed and collected in Princeton University, Cornell University, Kensington Palace, The Royal Commonwealth Society, Museum in Docklands Gloucester Cathedral, Watershed and M-Shed Bristol. 

Many of his commissioned project work engages with contested histories and heritage, which has often required detailed archival research and an acute sensitivity to collective social issues and ideas.

Further Information

Medium: yacht enamel on MDF
Size: 4 x 180 x 77cm
Permanent display
See Graeme Mortimer Evelyn’s Reconciliation Reredos on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: Canon Tim Higgins

Other works in churches by Graeme Mortimer Evelyn: The Eternal Engine, St Francis at the Engine Room, Tottenham Hale, 2017; Stations of the Cross, Gloucester Cathedral (currently on loan to St Francis)

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Jean Cocteau: Interior murals and altar

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Geoffrey Clarke: High Altar cross