The Reconciliation Triptych

Three of my four ‘Evilution panels that returned from Ground Zero New York earlier this year, ‘Coventry’, ‘Dresden’ and ‘Hiroshima’, and now renamed the ‘Reconciliation Triptych’, are to be exhibited in St Mary’s Church Penzance. The exhibition ‘Hope in Darkness’ will also include the large ‘ Angel’ sculpture by Tim Shaw RA and works by a number of well known artists. The exhibition will be open daily from 10.30 to 4.00 from the 2nd to the 17th November. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby will be visiting St Mary’s on Saturday 16th. November during his visit to the Diocese.

I will be giving a talk at St Mary’s  about the panels and the Evilution Project on Armistice Day, Monday November 11 at 1.15.

The three panels which make up this triptych, were formerly part of a five panel installation called ‘Where Their Footsteps Left No Trace’. They were memorials to the millions of innocent men, women and child who became victims of conflict, many because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or from the wrong country or race.  The original five panels, Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Auschwitz and 9/11, each represented places synonymous with our ability to make extraordinary advances in science and technology only to turn those advances into the means of killing people. A phenomenon I have called ‘Evilution’ and the name of an ongoing project which is likely to occupy me for the forseeable future

The original installation was exhibited at Falmouth Art Gallery, Truro Cathedral, St Ives Parish Church, Coventry Cathedral and St Peter’s Church, Ground Zero ,New York.

The 9/11 panel is now in the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre, New York and this triptych is soon to become part of the permanent collection at Coventry Cathedral. I hope to announce the future of the Holocaust ( formerly Auschwitz ) panel in the near future.

   

The Panels at Coventry Cathedral  2010

NY panels back in St Ives

At last I am pleased to announce that after an absence of almost two years, four panels from the installation ’ Where Their Footsteps left No Trace ‘ have at last arrived safely back from St Peter’s Church near Ground Zero, New York.  I’m told they had a profound effect on the many thousands who visited the church during that time. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the fifth panel ( 9/11 ) is now part of the permanent collection of the National September 11th Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Hurricane Sandy scuttled my plans to go across and repack the panels and get them from the church basement to the shippers in New Jersey so I had to leave it to them to organise it. More delays ensued as New York truckers will only pick up from the kerbside and not basements. As expected, only one thing would resolve this impasse - money ( lots of it! ). 

When the crate finally got to my shipping agents in Exeter the term trucker took on a whole new meaning when Dennis Oates, well know St Ives trucking and tour bus operator heard the story and said “we’ll get them back to his studio for him”  So a few days ago a 40 ton truck turned up at the end of our narrow road and did just that.  The story was well covered in the local press as Dennis had spent his childhood years living in the Battery building on the Island at St Ives which for twenty years and until recently was my studio  and where the panels were made. There’s more to the story which can be found on my website www.evilution-project.com    

I have now renamed the Coventry, Dresden and Hiroshima panels ‘The Reconciliation Triptych’ and the Auschwitz panel ‘Holocaust’. Talks are at present underway about their future and I hope to be able to tell you more in my next blog. 

Susan Rescorla visit

I’ve written much about 9/11 hero Rick Rescorla and his widow Susan who has become a family friend. During her recent visit to Cornwall she attended a ceremony at Launceston College where a newly built wing was named after her husband. She was accompanied by film executive and producer Martyn Auty who is planning a film about Rick’s life. Susan also visited Penpol School ( his childhood school) in Hayle where the children have established a wildlife garden in his honour.  Susan stayed with us for several days during which time she hosted a gathering of friends and family and visited the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Garden - a favourite spot during her visits with Rick.

The Move

My decision to quit the Battery studio on the Island after twenty years was prompted by a new direction of work on a much smaller scale ( more about that soon ), two winters of storm damage, regular rat invasions, vandalism and the last straw - arson!  So the decision was easy. Dealing with the accumulation of twenty years in that large building was a different matter.  If you’ve ever emptied a small garden shed you’ll know what I mean. It took over two months with many trips to the local dump. The good news is that during that time I had a custom made studio built at the rear of my house.  Although less than half the size of the previous one it is perfect with the bonus of being warm, dry and accessable at any time.

I didn’t get to New York City last week to repatriate my Evilution panels. Instead, I watched   the TV in horror as Hurricane Sandy left a trail of devastation along the coast of New York and New Jersey. As it sent a 11 foot surge of seawater into lower Manhattan at high tide my heart sank. Four of the my five panels, honoring the innocent victims of conflict, were in the basement of St Peter’s Church near ground Zero. The fifth is now part of the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum three floors below the World Trade Centre just two blocks away.  

So ironic I thought, that my works (symbols of man’s destructiveness) may now have been destroyed so close to ground Zero, the catalyst for their creation and by a force greater than man can create. Or maybe, as some have already pointed out, man did have a hand - by destroying vast areas of rain forrest.

And what of my friends in Manhattan and New Jersey I thought. I cannot contact them, so are they without power, heat, water, phone contact and the basic necessities for survival?

Last night I received the first replies to the many e-mails I have been sending.  One friend has lost his home in Brooklyn -- see photo of him and his family surveying the wreckage. Other friends are well but living in what they describe as a ‘war zone’ with shops running low on food. The only piece of good news is that the panels were not flooded at the church. I still cannot contact the museum.  As I hear more and revise my plans, this page,will be updated along with my website and Facebook pages

911 panel for 911 Museum

I am now very pleased and honoured to say that, following discussions with Jan Ramirez, Chief Curator and Director of Collections of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre, the 911 panel will now be exhibited there as part of its permanent collection. I delivered it to their offices last week pending the opening of the museum next year.

In a recent statement Jan Ramirez welcomed the acquisition adding, " As we work to build an encyclopaedic museum collection that engages with the September 11 terrorist attacks in the broadest cultural context, the recent donation of Roy Ray's 911 sculpture seems custom ordered to this mission. As a piece of response art, it provokes haunting memories of the inconceivable destruction of 2/4 mile high skyscrapers......".

The end of a journey

The long journey of the five panels “Where Their Footsteps Left No Trace” from their first showing in 2008 at the Falmouth Art Gallery, at Truro Cathedral, St Ives Parish Church and Coventry Cathedral has now come to an end at St Peter’s Church near ground Zero in New York. At their installation there last July, they were blessed by Father Madigan. I then dedicated the 911 panel to Rick Rescorla, Father Michael Judge and the First Responders that day who gave their lives attempting to rescue others (see my last blog). I then gifted the panel to the city of New York.