Coventry Cathedral

I spent Monday morning this week hanging the panels in Coventry Cathedral on a specially made 12ft supporting screen just inside the main entrance. Each panel is lit by a spotlight and I'm very pleased with the result. You can also see the ruins of the old Cathedral through the glass screen which is quite poignent given that my centre panel commemorates the Coventry blitz of seventy years ago. Maybe as a result of their presence I will get to meet some survivors of that terrible night in November 1940. The panels will remain on show until the 3rd of April ie. for the six weeks of Lent.

Many of you will have received a Newsletter and invitation to the informal reception there at 1pm. on Saturday 27th. I will be giving a short introduction to the panels and look forward to meeting up with a few friends from the Midlands.

If you need an invitation card ( otherwise there is a Cathedral entrance fee) e-mail me at roy.beryl@virgin.net and I will send you one.

Last Post at the Menin Gate

I recently made a second visit to Ypres in Belgium to attend the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. The bugles sound at 6pm every day of every year in memory of the many thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers who gave their lives there in World War One. The sixty thousand names inscribed on the walls are the ones they never found A very moving experience. I also visited Tyne Cot Cemetery and some preserved trenches. The short film I made is now on the website and youtube.

Coventry

The installation of the panels in Coventry Cathedral will be part of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the blitzing of the city in November 1940 which destroyed St Michaels Cathedral and most of the medieval city centre.

In the 1950's Coventry was twinned with Dresden as an act of reconciliation. One of the panels to be exhibited is dedicated to Dresden

Panels at St ives Church

It was good to be joined by so many local friends at the opening of the Installation in the Parish Church by Professor Alan Livingston during the St Ives September Festival.

The Evilution project

WHERE THEIR FOOTSTEPS LEFT NO TRACE

Civilisation has greatly benefited from man’s infinite capacity for research and invention: a capacity that is frequently harnessed for the destruction of others, the full horror of which can manifest itself at any time. This ongoing project is,my personal response as an artist to this evil phenomenon, which I have called Evilution and to its innocent victims in relation to the times in which I have lived, the people I have met and the events I have witnessed. For this purpose, I am using constructions, collages, photographs and video together with writings which include those drawn from numerous childhood memories. These panels are the first phase of the Evilution Project and will focus on examples for which a single name is synonymous with the mass destruction of innocent lives by the corrupt use of science and technology. As we reach the seventieth anniversary of the Blitz, they are also memorials to the millions of men, women and children who became the innocent victims of conflict, many because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or were from the wrong country or race. Many perished without trace, but each one

meant something to someone and should not be forgotten.

Roy Ray St Ives 2010

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

Vist the Website.