Yvonne Bell (b.1951 – )
Icon of Christ – Yeshua’s Promise, 2020
Acrylic and 23 carat gold leaf on 22mm plywood
42cm x 30cm
Loaned by the artist
Icon of Christ – Yeshua’s Promise
Painted in April 202 in response to politics around the world. I googled a selection of African male faces and lived with them for a while until parts of each face became noticeable. So, the face I drew was not one that already exists but a new face.
I painted his eyes first so that I could see him and he could see me while I painted him. The idea when painting an icon is to pray with the person you are painting – and let them sit with you.
His cloak is taken from a Kenyan printed fabric.
(Yvonne Bell – Christian Art and Church Vestments/christian-art.vpweb.co.uk)
Biographical Details
Yvonne Bell is a Christian artist who was trained in iconography by Dom. Anselm at the Abbey of Our Lady and St John at Alton in Hampshire. Yvonne works from her Northamptonshire studio. In addition to being an iconographer she also designs church vestments with painted silk panels as well as banners, chasubles, stoles, copes, mitres, lectern and pulpit falls and altar cloths.
(Yvonne Bell)