St Augustine’s Confessions, Part 3 (Series)
Gillian Lever, 2016

Sometimes abstract art can go to the heart of things. This joyful image was made by artist Gillian Lever. She says, ‘Art making for me is a mindful and mystical occupation, centring and integrating – a form of prayer.’ The work is one of a series made as part of the artist’s residency at Sarum College in Salisbury, while researching the photography and visual art of the monk and hermit Thomas Merton. ‘Merton,’ she says, ‘was particularly interested in visual experience because of its emphasis on “attention” and the experiencing of “the moment”. I am drawn to this contemplative approach to art making.’ As well as strong use of colour there are elements of collage in the work. Lever used the pages of an old copy of St Augustine’s Confessions found in Sarum’s secondhand bookshop. ‘It was a free, open and quiet time of production,’ she says. ‘Although I worked with text, I felt no need to argue or explain. I made the work contemplatively, animated by silence and the visual experience of the present moment.’

www.leverarts.org

Art in focus is curated by Meryl Doney

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This article was published in the July/August 2021 edition of Reform

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