Art in Sacred Places

Charlie Millar is an Artist working in Camberwell, London. His recent exhibition was Lifeforms, at Gallery 27, Cork Street. This mainly showed coloured oils paintings, and also some casts. He now has a commission from Canterbury Cathedral, Britain's most important ecclesiastical building.

With this commission, he has placed an installation of 300 perspex casts, each a hand-made work of art, on the floor of the Eastern Crypt of Canterbury Catherdral, creating a jewel-like carpet of intricate, compound, polished crystal. The work is to be unveiled for the duration of Lent 2006. This work celebrates the tiniest of obj ects of creation in Britain's most important ecclesiastic building. The Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd Robert Willis said Works of art help us to reinterpret the spaces of this amazing Cathedral Church. Canterbury has long been associated with pilgrimage and this work shows the imprint of many human lives passing through this place. It is illustrative, not only of the Parable of the Sower, but also of the pilgrim path to Canterbury.

The pe rspex casts will be laid out on the paving of the crypt in a 4.18 x 1.35 rectangle. This new pavement will contain 44 perpex bricks long and seven wide, using over 308 casts, each unique, meticulously polished and joined together into one seamless dazzling work of art. Visitors should be able to see each cast in detail and to appreciate the variety of shapes and colours of the individual casts, inspired by forms found in the natural world,

William Blake said that All that Lives is Sacred. Many of the casts contain seeds or beans at varying stages of growth or decay, while other objects, someties classified as waste have been elevated in status and might find themselves adjacent to a cast containing something of more typical value; a piece of jewellery, a crucifix, or a fine botanical drawing. Many of the natural elements cast in perspex come from the garden of Lambeth Palace, where the Artist keeps bees.

Pictures of the casts, individually and as composites, can be seen at www.charliemillar.com.

Daisy Evans is a writer and editor.

Author:: Daisy Evans
Keywords:: Artist, Canterbury, art installation, ecclesiastical art
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