ART: Painting unveiled at Easter service

Mar 11 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

THE final painting in a series first shown in 2000 will be unveiled at Liverpool Cathedral on Easter Sunday.

The Empty Tomb will be revealed to the Cathedral congregation at the 10.30am service.

The painting by Derbyshire-based artist Ghislaine complements the paintings from her Stations of the Cross series which were first shown at the cathedral in April, 2000.

The paintings are on show until March 30.

Produced in association with Amnesty International and The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, the paintings combined religious and secular imagery documenting man’s inhumanity to man.

The new work, The Empty Tomb, is based on drawings of Liverpool arches and doorways, and notes traces left by the homeless.

Its aim is again to fuse the religious with the humanitarian to create a painting of stark power.

It shows an empty white sheet which had obviously previously contained a body, stretched out across some yellow seating.

It was created after the artist visited Liverpool in the early mornings last Easter, looking at places where the homeless had left cardboard boxes and blankets.

The new painting will be curtained on Maundy Thursday and left covered until the Easter Sunday service, when the curtains will be drawn back.