Jonah

1999
Woodcut
4ft x 4ft

The print ‘Jonah’ reflects some of my own inner battles with organised religion at the time of making it.
One frosty morning when I was driving to work, I saw a Sperm Whale that had somehow got stranded in Weisdale Voe . That evening, I drew the character of Jonah who in the bible story is told by God to go in a certain direction but instead he takes a boat in very opposite direction, only for a giant storm to engulf him and he ends up in the belly of a giant whale. Jonah is cast ashore with his ego shattered and lots of time to consider the futility of running away from God which is something I’ve tried to do on many occasions but have never been able to do.

Visual prayer through the act of drawing and painting is something I’ve embraced and cultivated since my mid-twenties usually in a very subconscious way that is often way ahead of the restraints of my waking mind . Often this art was led by a prayerful vision that has at times felt like working in a spiritual battlefield as I came up against brick wall after brick wall that did its best to either try to stop me or get me to turn in another direction. This spiritual battlefield became ever more intense when I tried to make art that is at odds with the dominant world view of the predominantly secular humanistic culture in which we live. My ever-increasing spiritual conception of nature was gradually starting to set me free from the shackles of organised religion, even though during this period I was still actively studying the bible. My slow severance from church continued to take root in a silent and unseen way, and at the time I did not yet have a language to conceptualise in words what was happening and everything flowed into my art and this reflects some of my inner battles with organised religion .