Past exhitions

It is the first time that contemporary icons from the Holy Mountain were exhibited as a body of work. Mount Athos represents the remnant of Byzantium and one of the most important centres of Eastern Orthodoxy. According to Athonite tradition, the peninsula is the “Garden” of the Virgin Mary who, accompanied by St John the Evangelist, sheltered there from a storm on their way to Cyprus to visit St Lazarus. As early as the 5th century Christian hermits colonized this wild and beautiful place in order to live the life of prayer and contemplation. Iconography has always played a crucial part in the spiritual life of the Holy Mountain and its practice has been constant throughout its history. Among the many iconographers whose work can be seen on Mount Athos are Manuel Panselinos (13th c.) and Dionysios of Fourna (18th c.).

Light From Light

Contemporary Icons from Mount Athos

12 April - 24 May 2007

Virgin Kecharitomeni 50x70 cm

Egg tempera on gesso, water gilded

Nick graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee in 1999 with an M.A. in Fine Art. He was previously based in Edinburgh where he practised and taught theatre design. Nick has exhibited widely in Scotland and in 2003 was one of eight artists, including Elizabeth Blackadder and Toby Patterson, selected to represent the best of Scottish contemporary art in a national tour.

His work is largely informed by and born of the materials and processes found in expressions of the vernacular and his subject matter has been rooted, for some time, in the Judeo Christian tradition.

The importance he places on craft (process/skill) in making an artwork is paramount and is manifested in the attention to detail and in the finish of the piece. The canvases are variously woven, embroidered or stitched and then sealed with gesso and massaged with pigment – he rarely paints in the popular understanding of the word.

Antiphon

REREDOS

Works by Nick Sargent

22 February-31 March 2007

FR. ILIE DANTES is the iconographer of the Monastery where he resides in Romania and leads a team of students fulfilling commissions. He studied in the Department of Iconography at the Academy of Art in Bucharest.

ADRIAN IURCO is a young iconographer born in Tulcea, Romania. He studied at the Patriarch Justinian Marina Institute of Theology in Bucharest. He is a specialist in fresco painting and has fulfilled important commissions. His work can be found at the monastery of Vatopeidi, Mount Athos, and on the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Icons from Romania

30 Nov - 15 Dec 2006