Jonathan Parsons: Cruciform Vision
Title: Cruciform Vision
Artist: Jonathan Parsons (b. 1970, British)
Location: Guildford Cathedral (C of E)
Date: 2011
This work was shortlisted for the ACE Award for Art in a Religious Context 2011.
Painted on linen, this oil painting depicts bright interwoven lines with one yellow cross highlighted in the centre, which is held in place by the surrounding structure. The white squares are the densest points. Parsons’ title, the Cathedral context and Parsons’ ideas of space and inversion described in his interview below can be used to tease out meaning: the cross that signified death and shed red blood bringing life; the world inverted by Christ’s death; these implications spreading out through all of life's structures and systems.
‘Jonathan Parsons’ Cruciform Vision in Guildford is a very ingenious painting ... it has an almost three-dimensional quality in the overlapping horizontal and vertical lines, and multiple cruciform shoes become more apparent the longer you look, aside from the striking central cross in the middle of the painting.’ (The Very Reverend Nicholas Frayling reporting on the ACE award for Art in a Religious Context)
‘The grid paintings, says Parsons, deal with the brushstroke and all the impossibility of something that appears to be 3D being flat at the same time. The idea that one colour crosses another in them is impossible. there are no layers whatsoever, just abutting colours which creates a succession of apparent levels which are actually flat. The white squares, which might appear to be the background, are actually the fattest bit of the painting.’ (Interview with Paul Carey-Kent, Jonathan Parsons – new work, Art World, Issue 7, October/November)
Jonathan Parsons was born in 1970 in Redhill, UK. He studied at Goldsmith’s College and West Surrey College of Art and Design. Parsons first came to attention when he exhibited in Charles Saatchi’s Sensations Exhibition in 1997. He lives and works in Guildford and Farnham. Parson’s work investigates visual meaning by pulling apart obvious signifiers such as flags, the grid, maps and graffiti marks, through a largely process-driven oeuvre.
Further Information
Medium: Oil on linen
Size: 135 x 135cm
Permanent display
See Parson’s Cruciform Vision on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: Dean and Chapter of Guildford Cathedral