Artists discuss their work inspired by Laudato Si

Martin Jarvis and Helen Elwes

A special Mass for the Care of Creation took place on the first anniversary of Pope Francis' death yesterday at Farm St Church, Mayfair. The chief celebrant was parish priest Fr Dominic Robinson.

A beautiful exhibition of works inspired by Laudato Si , is currently on at the London Jesuit Centre, next door to the church. After the Mass The two artists featured in the exhibition, Helen Elwes and Martin Jarvis, spoke about their work at London Jesuit Centre on Tuesday evening, 21st April, after the Mass.

Both artists described how they had come to their 'ecological conversions' and how this had affected their art work.

Helen talked about the development of her ecological art, illustrated with early examples including her self-portrait as a Green Woman, painted in 1993, inspired by her love of the Green Men figures found in numerous medieval churches in England. She showed us her paintings of Cassandra, the prophet fated to speak the truth without being believed, the figure set against a burnt-out rainforest (1992); Daphne, who prayed for safety while being pursued by the god Apollo and was transformed into a laurel tree (1993); Mary, Mother of Mercy, painted for the Christian Climate Action tent at the Extinction Rebellion protests in 2019; the Madonna of the Burning Bush, applied to the plight of the rainforests (2023); and The Tyger After William Blake (2020), painted to draw attention to the fact that only 5,500 tigers remain in the wild now. Helen spoke of the catastrophic collapse in the numbers of various species in recent decades and of the success of the Extinction Rebellion direct action protests in persuading the UK Government to declare a Climate Emergency.

Martin described painting as a response to Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to the film The Mission and drawing inspiration from astrophysics and cosmology, from plants, pets and a sense of connectedness with the Earth. He showed us examples of banners he had painted for climate protests and, most strikingly for me, a large painting called 'Lazy Daze', depicting young people relaxing in a motor launch as it approaches the top of a waterfall. On the bank, a suited man plays football with the planet Earth as the ball, against a backdrop of oil palm trees, an oil well and discarded plastic bottles.

The subject matter was, of course, disturbing - it was meant to be. The call to action, issued through art, was clear and commanding. But both Helen and Martin drew attention to the example of Pope Francis and his teaching in Laudato Si. In that magnificent, life-affirming encyclical, that loving, prophetic, holy man of God does not spare us the urgency of the task ahead but also urges us (in section 244): 'Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.' Amen!

The exhibition runs until Tuesday 28th April.

LINKS

Helen Elwes: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/elwes-helen-b-1958

Martin Jarvis Ecclesiastical Work: www.muralslondon.co.uk/Ecclesiastical/ecclesiastical.html#1

'The Crucified Planet' installed at West London parish. www.indcatholicnews.com/news/42956

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