A New English Style

Our Lady Star of the sea. Painted for an Anglican hurch in central London with a large West Indian

congregation. You can see how closely the Virgin Mary is modelled on this example from the hand of

Matthew Paris but you can also see how IAN has adapted this model both in terms of its subject and

in terms of its design. The throne is narrow and higher giving a sense of elegance, while the rhythm
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Over the past five years I have been exploring a new style of icon painting, one more suited to the English liturgical environment. For inspiration I have looked especially to the work of Matthew Paris, an English medieval monk from St Alban's abbey.

The icon of St George you see below is the subject of the Icon Painting Course conducted between January 16 and 29th 2023. The Course explores in details how I designed and made this icon, from the consideration of various design options, teasing out what elements of Paris' illustration style could be successfully integrated into the Tradition of Byzantine iconography, through to the making of gesso and bole and the application of gold leaf just as it was done in the middle ages.

If you would like to purchase the recordings of the course then subscribe here.

You can see the fruits of this quest in this small exhibition of some of my more recent icons.

The main inspiration is taken from the work of a medieval English monk from St Alban's abbey in Hertfordshire. He was a chronicler and an illuminator of manuscripts, and is renowned as one of the most skilled in his craft. While his work illustrated texts, religious and secular, and is more illustrative than iconographic, in his rhythmic lines there is a vivacity and joyfulness which I find is at home in the liturgical context, one which proclaims the gospel in line and form.

I first discovered Paris' work while conducting research for the design of the major icons for Lichfield Cathedral. A gothic building from the pre-reformation era, I was looking for a style that would enable the icons I made to resonate in their environment. Resonate liturgically with its Catholic past and its Anglican present.

After completing the Lichfield icons in 2018 I began to explore Paris' work more deeply and to extract something of his distinctive style. I wasn't looking to copy his work, or simply to make new illustrations in his style, but rather to fuse his influence with the mainstream of Byzantine iconography.

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Print of all the icons in this exhibition can be ordered here

Order a print

"Book of St Alban's"

Digitised at the Library of Trinity College Dublin

A great introduction to the life and work of Matthew Paris, medieval monk, illuminator, artist, chronicler...

Visit the Library

Icons give us a taste of Paradise,

of a world redeemed and infused with the Divine Light.

Painting the Icon of Our Lady Star of the Sea

A video reflection on the icon by its author

November 2021

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The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Christ Child by Matthew Paris, 13th century, England

Here you can see a sample of some of Paris' work. The first illustration is a sublime piece that expresses an intimacy and warmth between Mother and Child, while eschewing the sensuality of later medieval work and at home in the Romanesque tradition that preceded it.

The swirl of line together with a flourish of stroke create a lively rhythm while strong, rhythmic vertical strokes and strong calligraphic lines at key junctures give his work it's distinctive feel, a 'still liveliness'.

This is the main inspiration for the Icon of Our Lady Star of the Sea which you can see below.

You can see Paris kneeling before the Virgin Mary, dressed in his robes as a Benedictine monk. You can read more about his biography here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Paris

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The Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea, 2021.

Egg tempera, 24ct water gilding, embossed.

This shows the Virgin Mary holding her Son in a gesture of comfort. Christ reaches up and clenches his Mother's veil in his fist as though anxious, while with the other hand he grasps her finger tightly. Mary is a source of comfort and strength to her Infant Son who clings to her tightly.

In the Byzantine tradition of icon painting there are various types of icon showing Christ with his Mother, one of which is called the Kyykotissa which is also shown here in a Greek style. This icon was painted for my students on the Academy Course in 2021. This too shows Christ agitated and clinging to his Mother's veil with a clenched fist, as though hanging on for dear life.

The church where this was commissioned has a large West Indian community which arrived as immigrants in the latter part of the 20th century, part of the Windrush Generation. Windrush refers to the name of the boat on which many of them came, and so the icon was made under the title of Mary, Star of the Sea. The request was for an icon that would speak to this community and their deep and abiding trust in God and in the Blessed Mother, especially under the title Our Lady of Walsingham.

In the tradition of the Black Madonnas found across sanctuaries in Europe, including at the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham, Mary is shown as a black woman, and Christ as a black Child, thus identifying Christ's suffering and eternal love with that of the victims of slavery and oppression because of their colour. Christ is shown as humbling himself, even to the point, as St Paul says, of taking on the form of 'a slave', indicated by the manacle around his neck. The distinctive throne is modelled on that of Our Lady in the image at the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham.

All Saints' building is a very high church, Anglo-Catholic one in the neo-gothic style which made the connection with Paris' style obvious.

This is now in the Anglican church of All Saints in Notting Hill, London.

St Charles de Foucauld, 2022, egg tempera, 24ct water gilding.

St Charles was canonised in 2022, and this icon was commissioned by a priest in the United States as a gift to a convent.

I tried to capture the simplicity of this early 20th century hermit and his life in the north African desert. His most famous prayer is the Prayer of Abandonment, and this I expressed with his open arms and upturned hands. This gesture also reflects his offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass to which he was deeply devoted.

He was a peripatetic monastic, living in Syrian, north Africa and the Holy Land, and so I showed him as though walking. In Nazareth he lived in a garden hut inside a Poor Clare convent and tended the garden for the sisters, a time for deep formation for him, so I show him here in a desert garden. He is in the religious habit he designed and wore at the latter part of his life, with the distinctive emblem of the Sacred Heart.

Matthew Paris has a wonderful fluid simplicity in his line, conveying an ascetic joyous spirit, one stripped of sensuality yet full of joy. I thought this was resonant with the spirituality of this saint whose example has inspired countless thousands of nuns and brothers, as well as priests in the Jesus Caritas fraternities.