THE exhibition “Cloud of Witnesses” is essentially predicated on the belief that there are a multitude of different images of God because God is infinite and cannot be defined or definitively depicted. From a Christian perspective, the title, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, is stretched to include the witness of other faiths to the nature of God. For this exhibition, the Old Crypt of St John’s, Waterloo, in London, becomes the cloud in which these diverse witnesses are held.
Contributions from the UK’s diverse faith communities were sought, and a wide variety of images of God have been included. Despite this, most of the images chosen refer to aspects of Christianity, an outcome that may have resulted from the main partners’ all being Christian organisations. As a result, awareness of the opportunity to contribute may have been more limited than hoped.
Nevertheless, the exhibition does offer a wide and stimulating opportunity to reflect on different facets of the divine nature and being. As is common and necessary, within Christianity at least, materiality and current affairs are essential in depictions of God, who is intimately engaged with us.
The winning entry in the competition, Iain Malcolm McKillop’s May They Be One, depicts representatives of different races, genders, cultures, and faiths sharing a cup of the Water of Life beneath olive leaves symbolising peace. The leaves surround and envelope the heads of the participants in this prayer as their heads are bowed, forming a tight cohesive circle. The painting “expresses a prayer that all who long for peace, truth, love and unity may live and work harmoniously and in concord to influence and heal our needy, disunited world”.
The image that brings together the eternal and the contemporary par excellence is Michael Takeo Magruder’s Lamentation for the Forsaken (the Face of Christ). This archive monoprint juxtaposes a photographic negative of the Turin Shroud with the names and details of refugees who died in the Syrian Civil War. The formation of Christ’s face through the names of individuals fleeing the Syrian conflict and the juxtaposing of his suffering with theirs open up a moving depth of reflection on the cyclical nature of violence and the possibility of transformative and redemptive action within it.
Magruder’s original creation was an installation for a series of Stations of the Cross in central London, at locatons including St Stephen Walbrook, where the first iteration of this work was shown. Subsequently displayed at other churches internationally, the installation was eventually deconstructed by Magruder and can no longer be shown. Yet, it continues to have a life beyond its own death, in works such as the archive monoprint shown here.
Will George 2025Elizabeth Crichton’s Forty Feet of Clay (2023)
Elizabeth Crichton’s Forty Feet of Clay plumbs similar depths. A print of a photograph of a sculptural installation shows a pile of clay feet heaped and abandoned in an outhouse. The image refers to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, with its vision of four empires replaced by the Kingdom of God. In a world in which the power of dictators and oligarchs appears to be increasing, this image is a helpful reminder of the end towards which the arc of the moral universe actually bends.
Other of the works use the Book of Nature as a revelation of the divine. Sophie Hacker’s Infinity I is inspired by the Fibonacci spiral, a beautiful and yet simple shape found throughout nature from the uncurling fronds of ferns to, as here, spiral galaxies at the moment of creation. Richard Kenton Webb’s Theophany depicts encounter with the living God as a cloud of holiness descending into place and time. This image is seen within a vitrine enabling the viewer to see this extraordinary moment and making this painting a sacred space of beholding and remembering.
Works that draw primarily on the insights of other faith communities include Raji Salan’s Vishnu and Laksmi dreaming the multiverse, a counter-balanced collage showing the inter-connected nature of the universe through depiction of a story from Hindu mythology. Prasad Beaven’s Clouds & Waves is a semi-abstract work depicting the interplay of masculine and feminine forces as they provide the unseen energy that connects and animates all living things. Lament in Gaza by Ceri Elisabeth Leeder sets a burial platform based on Crow Indian Sky Burials in the devastation of Gaza and raises the platform to receive the sun at its lowest ebb. For her, this represents a sense of redemption found within a hell on earth.
Bishop Peter Brignall, Chair of Judges for “Cloud of Witnesses”, writes that, if we believe God is universal, “we need to be open to the universal in our artistic expressions while recognising that we come to faith in our own contexts and modalities.” As a result, “rather than limiting the imaging of God and his creation we are urgently invited to open up a wider range of images and expressions of divine beauty and truth.”
In reality, this exhibition is principally an ecumenical venture, but one that aspires to create a richer dialogue about how we see and understand faith, divinity, and the value of creativity, drawing inspiration from different faiths, cultures, and experiences. It is highly commended on that basis while, perhaps, also serving as a staging post towards a more comprehensively interfaith exhibition in future.
“Cloud of Witnesses” runs at St John’s, Waterloo, in London, until 27 April. See website for exhibition opening times. stjohnswaterloo.org
