Ecclesiart is an online project that raises awareness of significant works of modern and contemporary art since 1920 in UK churches and cathedrals.
The selected works represent the diversity of high quality church commissions and reflect developments in artistic practice and ecclesiastical art and design. You can explore the collection using the tiles below or by using the Ecclesiart map.
We seek to encourage increased responsibility towards works which may be under-appreciated or at risk and hope that this selection of works provides inspiring and challenging examples of art in churches useful to any parish or individual wishing to commission a new work.
We welcome nominations of new works to be added to Ecclesiart. Please email us with a short text about why you think a work of art should be included with a short theological reflection on the work and its context (no longer than 150 words) and if possible please include images. Please note that we do not accept nominations from artists for their own work.
All permanent works shortlisted for the Award for Art in a Religious Context are added to Ecclesiart. For all other nominations, the Director and trustees of Art and Christianity reserve the right to select works which they determine as meeting the criteria of aptness to context, artistic and technical merit and appropriate theological meaning.
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Victoria Rance: Comforter
St Laurence Church, Catford, is a notable octagonal church built by Ralph Covell in 1968. The east wall behind the freestanding altar presented a problem that for several decades remained unsolved. A plain cloth screen covering the organ pipes formed an unsatisfactory backdrop to the sanctuary, despite an illuminated dalles de verre cross in its centre. The space ‘was an empty vacuum – not even a positive absence – a negative space demanding to be filled’, as Charles Pickstone, the current vicar, has put it. Victoria Rance, an artist based in nearby Deptford, was commissioned in 2008 to produce a work that would solve this problem, with enough visual force to fill and unite the space without distracting from the altar and sanctuary.
Bill Viola and Kira Perov: Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)
Intensely theological it addressed big issues of the day and asked questions of us about meaning, life, death and what we would give our lives for.
Emily Young: Lunar Disc I
The large onyx disc was installed as a gift on the north west lawn in the Close of Salisbury Cathedral but has since been transported elsewhere. It is made of one billion year old, semi translucent onyx and is around two metres tall.
Tracey Emin: For You
The artists own feminine handwriting - a rare element of Christian iconography - reads 'I Felt You And I Knew You Loved Me'.
Rona Smith: North Elevation
Rona Smith’s North Window panel is constructed from a web of whirling squares suspended in the window alcove. The squares spiral out from a central 'eye' whilst the panel itself curves into the space forming a sculptural arc which echoes the two dimensional pattern.
Charles Gurrey: A Tribute to Wilfred Owen
In 2014, Ripon Cathedral acquired an installation acknowledging the Great War. ‘A Tribute to Wilfred Owen’ by Charles Gurrey is set on the wall above the altar in the chapel of Peace and Justice at the west end of the north aisle of the nave in the position of a reredos.