Art Exhibitions

Contact Details


Phone: 01483 547870

Guildford Cathedral's uncluttered, light and airy interior provides a perfect setting for art exhibitions. Exhibitions range from paintings, photographs and sculpture by local artists to topical national exhibitions. If you would like to investigate the possibility of holding an exhibition in the Cathedral please contact Carrie Tinsley.

Viewing times to visit the Cathedral and view artwork are Monday to Saturday    9.30am – 4.30pm. Before visiting please telephone: 01483 547860 to ensure the Cathedral is available.

Cruciform Vision by Jonathan Parsons - from 4 May

Cruciform Vision is an oil painting that presents a grid of purple, crimson, orange and brown brushstrokes, out of which emerge the horizontal and vertical golden bars of a cross, framed in the proportions of the Christian symbol. With this kind of painting, the artist seeks to reduce a hand made picture in oil paints down to something like its fundamental constituents: brush marks, colours, configuration and illusion. Cruciform Vision displays what appear to be continuous brushstrokes of pure colour drawn across one another, which continue unaltered even when a pale colour crosses a much darker one. This creates the illusion of many layers of pictorial depth. The coloured brushstrokes are, in fact, transparent and thinly painted, so the illusion is of something that is physically impossible. The process of making this kind of painting requires highly focused concentration, almost meditation. It is certainly intended to be an object of contemplation.

Cruciform Vision continues Parsons’ long-established practice of making ‘grid paintings’. Notable examples are in public collections such as the UK Government Art Collection and in private collections around the world.

Jonathan Parsons is an artist, writer and lecturer.  He has worked as a professional artist since 1990 and has been exhibiting internationally since 1997. He was selected for the British Art Show 5 and was one of the youngest artists to be included in the notorious Sensation at the Royal Academy of Arts, which toured to Berlin and New York.

Recent exhibitions include: The Golden Record (The Collection, Lincoln), Waldweben (Kasteel Schuurlo, Belgium), Shifting Ground (Angel Row), The Jerwood Sculpture Prize (Jerwood Space, London) and Art Out of Place (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery). He has regularly taught at a variety of art schools and universities since 1999. He is currently visiting lecturer in Fine Art at UCA, Farnham. His work is represented in public collections in the UK and private collections around the world. See: www.jonathanparsons.com

The Ingram Collection at Guildford Cathedral - Arriving 12 May

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations at Guildford Cathedral two pieces by Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993), from The Ingram Collection of Modern Art, a major private collection of Modern and Contemporary British art, will be on show at the Cathedral.

Elisabeth Frink was an English sculptor and printmaker who studied at the Guildford School of Art. As part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations the Walking Madonna will be on show at the Cathedral from 12 May 2011 until further notice.

Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) Walking Madonna, 1981 © The Estate of Elisabeth Frink

Walking Madonna, 1981

Frink's preoccupation with the male form was such that there is only one female image in Frink's entire oeuvre, the engaging 'Walking Madonna'. The figure was not intended as a self-portrait but as is so often the case when an artist is confronted with a commission for a figure of their own gender, Frink involuntarily sculpted her own face. The work has on occasion been interpreted as a metaphor for the artist’s life. This is no standardised, sanitised and retiring Madonna; instead the figure strides with a determinedly fixed purpose. She is knowingly self-aware, grasped by a sense of purpose and fortitude despite the apparently frail body she inhabits. The Walking Madonna to be displayed at Guildford Cathedral and is one of three, one of which stands in the Cathedral Close at Salisbury.

 

Christmas Exhibition - 29th November 2011 to 14th January 2012

A number of local Church Schools will be creating a magnificent exhibition titled 'Come All Ye Faithful' to celebrate Christmas. The school's involved are:

Esher Church School

St Jude’s Englefield Green

St Bartholomew’s

St Mary’s Chiddingfold

Witley Infant

St Andrew’s Primary, Cobham

Puttenham

St Michael’s Infant Aldershot

Walsh Memorial Infant

St James Primary, Weybridge

St Mark’s Primary, Farnborough

Wonersh & Shamley Green Infant

 

Photographic Exhibition - 17 January to 20 February 2012

‘A Celebration of Giving’ a photographic exhibition from The Community Foundation for Surrey.

Eikon is a charity which exists to support young people and their families from across Surrey who are facing difficulties in their lives. Photographer – Maddy Barlow.


‘A Celebration of Giving’ is a collection of photographs, co-ordinated by the Community Foundation for Surrey, which aims to capture the spirit of the inspiring organisations throughout the county who make a real difference to people’s lives. The exhibition will feature winning and commended photographs from the competition which took place late last year. Amateur photographers were encouraged to submit photos of a Surrey-based community, voluntary or charitable organisations which reflects how they are benefitting the health or wellbeing of its members or local community. Photographs from Disability Challengers, Cranleigh Riding for the Disabled Association, The Freewheelers Theatre Company, Leatherhead Youth Project and many others will be on display.

 

Reigate Sea Cadets are part of the UK's largest maritime youth charity. Cadets go to sea, learn to sail and do adventure training, plus get extra skills to give them a head start in life. Photographer - Graham Francis

Woking Dance Festival was a premiere partner for StopGAP's new piece 'Spun Productions' performed in Woking Town Centre in July. Photographer – Justin Dix

 

‘The book of Job’ by Martha Golden - 21 February to 9 April 2012

Prints of Engravings of 1884 by William Blake.


The series of 21 compositions (plus a title page) which William Blake engraved between 1823 and 1825 on the theme of the Book of Job are the crowning achievements of his work in line engraving, and amongst the greatest masterpieces of the whole history of engraving as an artistic medium. 

Blake started to engrave in the 1770s.  He had learned the use of the medium of engraving during his apprenticeship to James Basire from1772 to 1779. In 1793 Blake made his first engraving inspired by the story of Job in the Bible, followed in the next year by a companion piece on the theme of Ezekiel.  In these great works although there is all his inspired sense of expressive form and the beginning of the freedom and openness of line which will mark his greatest engraved prints, the use of the heavily worked surface and the repeated parallel curves of the shading still reflect very clearly the 18th century tradition of reproductive engraving.