November | 2013 | Work in Progress

After a period of art intervention on existing images and objects, I decided to go back to painting. While I was on a pilgrimage to Walsingham I was looking for more inspiration to continue with my project “Behold the Lamb of God”. My work has always been dark and out of the ordinary so sitting outside at Englands Nazareth at 6am one morning i decided to sketch the view in front of me.

Not the typical type of work i do but it inspired me religiously.

Anyway, this painting made me all the more determined to finish my artwork that I had started months before.

So if I take you back to where i had left it, “Behold the Lamb of God” looked like this…

The original concept behind “Behold the Lamb of God” was to produce a piece of artwork that was very religious and transgressive yet I did not want it to become Blasphemous. I knew this would challenge the views of many people especially religious people like myself. The piece itself is very large (8ft x 6ft), this was intentional as I wanted it to be life-size to be more shocking.

The three figures form a triangle, the holy trinity, father, son and holy ghost.

The head at the top, going down towards the floor and the legs astride form a crucifixion.

The birth could also be seen as a nativity.

The figures kneeling, praying, worshipping… Are these the servants of God?

The hermaphrodite (Male or female figure) giving birth. Why must it be a female to give birth? The Androgynous face could be male or female. We are all children of God whatever colour or religion. However, the Druze believe the messiah has not yet been born and when he is, he will be born from a man.

The Lamb (of God) is being born.

Cord Blood is being collected from the Lamb of God. If human cord blood can now cure some cancers and produce stem cell rejuvenation… What will the Lamb of Gods blood do? Miracles? It is precious so it needs to be collected immediately.

A fly will be on the back of the light overhead. A fly is considered a bearer of evil or pestilence. I wanted my fly to be symbolic of the Devil… Always near, ready and waiting to spread disease. I intend this to be the focal point of the whole painting even though it will be the smallest. I intend painting it very realistically.

When i started on my “Behold the Lamb of God” painting, I realised I didnt like the face i’d given the hermaphrodite… it didnt have the expression of child birth that i wanted, so I changed it.

I painted the chair in a silver paint for an aluminium look and also i thought the reflection off the light shining down on it would look good once the rays have been painted in… maybe a halo around the head effect?

I liked the way the central focus was on the penis/birth area. The way the arms and arc from the chair base formed a circle around it drew your eye there first. I am going to hang this painting at eye level to the central area.

What isn’t obvious at first is three illusions. The first is how is where are the central figures forearms? Does he/she have any? You automatically think they are behind the legs but are they? The second is the chair seems to be floating in mid air. Where are the legs? Is the chair attached to the wall at the back? and finally the tiles on the wall and floor seem to run in a continuous surreal never ending line. Where do they meet?

I also had the first idea of painting the ‘nurse’s” in a traditional blue costume and therefore had decided to paint the walls and curtains green but i didnt like it once it was done.

So I changed it to Blue which is much better… and the colour blue is used quite extensively (along with purple, scarlet and crimson) in the Old Testament to describe the various hangings, curtains, coverings etc in the holy places – Exodus 26:1;36; 27:16; 28:8, II Chronicles 3:14; etc. Holy covering – Exodus 28:31, Numbers 4:5-7; 11-12, Esther 8:15, the Lord’s commandments – Numbers 15:38-40 and blue is also symbolic of a heavenly colour… possibly changing the atmosphere of the cubicle with heavenly blue and the white of the tiles may be seen as the clouds below the heavens. The virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus is traditionally seen wearing blue. I was happy with the choice from Green to Blue.

Yet I was still not happy with the way the lamb was being born. I didn’t like the way it was just falling down. I still wasn’t sure wether I wanted the nurses to be servants of God or people from society today as I was going to portray one good and one bad. I sketched out some ideas. The first was going to make the viewer think the bad one was the one with the medical instruments as if a sort of animal experimentation was going on but really he was going to be the good guy and the one on the left was going to be the bad one pulling out the lamb from a chain around its throat.

Using figures as a guide for the rope and hand movements I drew this image;

In this sketch I liked the way the cord and the chain flowed together but I didn’t like the look of it aesthetically. I think it was the way the lamb was falling downwards, so I changed the angle of the lamb;

This was much better but i still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the nurses hands. I drew the hands grabbing the legs to pull it out and this is what I got;

I still didn’t like it. Then I thought why did this figure have to be bad? Why not have it caressing the lamb as it comes into the world?

I loved it!!! It was like Madonna and Child… Perfect!

I started reading about Twin brothers who were saints from the Third century. Saint Cosmas and Saint Damien. According to legend they devoted their lives to medicine and surgery (Great for the green surgery gowns they were now going to wear). They are always represented together, generally attired in they physicians habit of a long red gown and cap. They are usually depicted holding in one hand a box of ointment and in the other a surgical instrument, or a mortar and pestle. I decided these saints were perfect for the two figures at the front. Although I probably wont be attiring them in red they certainly have the gown and cap. I decided to make them twin brothers, and so removing the glasses that I originally had on the guy on the right they both look similar now. I also decided to put a surgical instrument in one of their hands and although the other doesn’t have any ointment I thought the caressing would soothe as the ointment would. So I based my nurses on the Saints Cosmas and Damien.

One day, I went into my studio space and by chance I saw the light shining on the side of my painting where I had blocked in a blue base colour for the curtains. I loved it so much I decided to include this light into the curtains, so I highlighted the top half where the light fell.

I noticed the head looked too big, the stomach didn’t look fat enough and the arms and penis were not right either;

I had help from 2 friends who volunteered their arms and stomach. (Thank you!)

and with a little adjusting changed the painting to something more becoming.

I forgot to mention that the face I chose for the Hermaphrodite is actually that of a black man. You can tell this from the width of his nose.

I started to paint the back of the surgical light. The image I had referenced from the internet was rubbish but I painted it anyway. I did NOT like the outcome. It looked terrible, no perspective at all and to me it looked like a flying saucer!

I tried to change it…

but I still wasn’t happy… so I just blocked in the sides and used the blue as a reference so I knew which was the sides. I can change this when I paint it all white.