The Stations of the Cross:
the captive figure
Documentation 
Artist's statement
For almost as long as I can remember,
The Stations of the Cross have been an essential part of my visual vocabulary.
As a child they were the first images that revealed the problematic
nature of human existence and the power of art as a means to express
the inexpressible.
As I grew older, I came into contact
with more emotionally charged versions of Christ's Passion than the
ones familiar to me from school and my local church. Especially significant
to me were those single episodes such as Rubens's great Deposition
and Titian's resonant image of the Entombment.
It became my ambition to continue
that tradition, by putting some of the emotive power of such images
into a suite of works corresponding to the fourteen Stations of the
Cross. I have been considering this ambition for many years; over the
last five I have been actively producing drawings and sketches and now
I feel ready to bring the project to fruition.
The Stations of the Cross
- the exhibition
The major sequence of paintings will
be placed in the dramatic setting of the nave of Liverpool Anglican
Cathedral and will be of a scale to correspond to the imposing architectural
context.
A number of large drawings associated
with Christ's Passion will be on view at the Metropolitan Cathedral
and linking the two buildings will be an installation of banners along
Hope Street. The banners, incorporating image and text, will form a
contemplative progress along the route, enabling a wide cross section
of people of all denominations or none to have access to the work.
Ghislaine Howard's paintings are
rooted in shared human experiences and have proved to communicate on
a spiritual, emotional and intellectual level to a wide audience.
Extension activities
Liverpool Hope University
College has a large number
of student teachers and during the production of the work for the exhibition
Ghislaine Howard will give lectures and informal talks with the students
concerning the progress and development of the project.
The experience, organisational skills
and ethos of both Liverpool Hope University College and Amnesty International
will ensure that a wide cross section of people will be thoroughly engaged
with this project.
There will be a close collaboration
between Ghislaine Howard and the Fine Art and Design department at Liverpool
Hope University College whose head of department will monitor the development
and progress of the work.
The exhibitions and workshops will
be widely advertised and it is planned to include a number of public
events to coincide with the completion of the work, using the 'Hope
on the Waterfront' video wall.
These events will be planned to act as a catalyst for the creative
collaboration of students and others in the Merseyside area, and through
their display at Canterbury and elsewhere will take their message to
a wider public.
The project will create an opportunity
for those of religious and non religious persuasions to come together
in the contemplation of a sequence of works that is central to the millennium
celebrations, that is firmly rooted within Christian belief and as such
speaks out about concerns that are burning issues of today and for the
future of our world society.
It is hoped that this project will
contribute towards the building of a better world for the new millennium
through a modern visualisation of one of the central themes of Christianity.
Amnesty International have expressed their support for the project and
are willing to work in collaboration with Liverpool Hope University
College to develop an number of activities including workshops and an
educational package based on the paintings and drawings for schools
and young people.
To accompany the educational package
it is hoped that a photographic and textual travelling exhibition can
be developed based on the original work to allow a tour of smaller or
more unusual venues such as churches, schools or village halls.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated publication that will contain a number of relevant
essays. The publication is intended to serve not only as a catalogue
for the exhibition but also as an entity in its own right; one that can
be used as an aid to meditatation on the spiritual aspects of The Stations
of the Cross and the more general issues the sequence suggests.
Ghislaine Howard - a brief résumé
Ghislaine Howard studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle
Upon Tyne and worked in London and Paris before returning to her native
north-west England in 1980. She lives and works in Glossop, in the
Derbyshire Peak District. She exhibits on a regular basis with the Boundary
Gallery and the Cynthia Corbett Gallery in London; Horizons Modern Art
in Brussels and the Tib Lane and Castlefield galleries in Manchester.
She has exhibited widely and her work appears in many public and private
collections. (Full CV)
Selected exhibitions since
1993
Horizons Modern Art, Brussels - solo exhibition, November 1998
Discerning Eye, London - invited artist by critic Richard Kendall,
London and Birkenhead, November 1998
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester - The Informal Portrait,
participant in selected exhibition, November 1997-January 1998
Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield - The Body Electric, solo
exhibition, September 1997
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester - Bodies, participant
in selected exhibition, September 1996-January 1997
Anthony Hepworth - participant in selected exhibitions, April 1996
and September 1995
Boundary Gallery - The Colour Blue, participant in selected
exhibition, May 1995
British Council, Manchester - Caught in the Act, solo exhibition,
November 1994
Warrington Art Gallery - Inside Out, solo exhibition alongside
work from inmates of Risley Prison, February 1994
Manchester City Art Gallery - A Shared Experience, solo exhibition,
March-May 1993
Selected Publications
Exhibiting Gender, Sarah Hyde, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1997
A Shared Experience, exhibition catalogue by David Peters-Corbett,
Manchester City Art Gallery, 1993
Numerous review articles in The
Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Women's Art Journal, Art Review, etc.
Forthcoming Publications
The Stations of the Cross:
The Captive Figure; exhibition
catalogue and book edited by Michael Howard with contributions by by
Dr Joan Crossley and Dan Jones, published by Liverpool University College
in association with Amnesty International, 2000
Critical response
Ghislaine Howard's "work has a passionate
roughness that seems sublimely right for the pain and confusion of the
passion. The Stations should cry out to the viewer/prayer the meaning
of human cruelty and our rejection of God's gentleness and love"
Ghislaine Howard's images
"have great dignity and self possession, an intransigent presence which
does justice to the gravity of the events depicted... One is witness
to necessity and autonomy and immemorial repetition and endurance. There
is something enduring, patient, reverent in the way (she) has conveyed
these issues; a complex putting together of the monumental and the
contingent."
- Martin Golding, writing
about Ghislaine Howard's
exhibition A Shared
Experience
"So it is through Howard's
moving embodiment of empathy that she really makes her individual mark.
(Her works) could hardly have been painted by any male, at any time,
anywhere."
- Robert Clark, The Guardian
"Drawing colour and the
signature of touch come together in these elemental paintings in works
that could only have been made in the late twentieth century."
- Richard Kendall, Galleries
Magazine
"The work that Ghislaine
Howard did at Maidstone Prison was powerful and dynamic; the inmates
found her an inspiration to work with. Her energy touched the lives
of those she worked with."
- Felicia Solomon, Freedom
through Creativity
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