Gilfedder Designs

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All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, 2024 The Idea Behind the Painting Sometimes an old saying suddenly takes on a new meaning. During the lockdowns, the phrase "all dressed up and nowhere to go" seemed to capture how many people felt. Weddings were postponed, birthdays cancelled, theatres closed, churches became silent, and even meeting friends became impossible. As restrictions slowly lifted, people started to appear again, but the emotional effects remained. There was relief, alongside uncertainty, sadness and frustration. This painting grew out of those feelings. I wanted to create an image that acknowledged that common understanding while suggesting humour. Finding Humour in Difficult Times The couple stand together in their finest clothes, ready for an occasion that never arrives. The expressions on their faces are calm and composed, but the situation still feels awkward, something many of us can recognise. Although the painting depicts a difficult peri...

Covenant, Companionship, and Creation in Darby and Joan

“Yet they’re ever uneasy asunder.” — from The Joys of Love Never Forgot. A Song, 1735. Some paintings depict a moment; others speak of a lifetime. In Darby and Joan, I set out to create a work that would not reveal itself all at once, but would ask for stillness, patience, and a slower kind of looking. At first, the painting presents two figures held in a tender embrace. Their faces meet gently, their eyes are closed, and their hands rest upon one another with the ease of long familiarity. Yet the work is not merely a depiction of affection; it is a meditation on companionship, faithfulness, and the kind of love that endures through time. Love shaped through years rather than moments. This reflection moves through the main elements that shape the work: the figures’ stone-like construction, the living use of colour, the expressive brushwork, the gold leaf of the wedding rings, and the Genesis vision of relationship that underpins the painting. The phrase and title of...

The Gift of Human Life

Art, Faith and the Mystery of Being Human. A richly illustrated exploration of painting, spirituality and what it means to be human. Available on Amazon, Buy on Amazon. This book has been ten years in the making. It is inspired by Saint John Paul's 'Man and Woman He Created Them. A Theology of the Body'. It is also about the questions within the title of Gauguin's painting called 'Where Do We Come From?' 'What Are We?' 'Where Are We Going?' Tree of Life in Paradise Restored We still need to ask these questions in a materialistic and scientific world that seems trapped in space. Whilst reading Theology of the Body, I realised the paintings I had produced over the years were the ideal accompaniment to the anthropology within Saint John Paul's work, especially the aspects of mystical and poetic theology. Creation Crucial to this project was working with my good friend Heather Macdonald, whose encouragement and skills as a graphic designer res...

The Cosmic Madonna

'The Cosmic Madonna' is a recent work in memory of Canon Reginald Fuller, a noted Biblical scholar who died in 2011 at the age of 102. I had become acquainted with him around 1989 when he mooted in the Catholic press the idea of a shrine to the 'Unborn Christ'. At that time, he was retired and assisting in Saint Mellitus parish at Tollington Park. Whilst there, he was attacked by a burglar and hit over the head with a brass crucifix. Thankfully he recovered in hospital. Up until then, he had decided that one of my paintings, 'Mary Mother of God', would be ideal for the shrine but had been unsuccessful in finding a church to commission it. The late Jerry Nolan, a London Irish poet took up the search for a church to host the shrine and did get some serious interest from one church. Sadly, they backed off due to concerns about objections from women's rights activists. Jerry Nolan went on to publish a poetry book (Cat of the Inner Cities) which included a poem ...

Madonna Nurse

Picture Courtesy of Saint Mun's, Dunoon Website This painting was commissioned by Father Roddy McAuley, Parish priest of Our Lady and Saint Mun's Church in Dunoon. Father Roddy granted me the freedom to interpret his vision for this work in my own visual way. For this, I thank him. The Madonna Nurse is based on a recurring vision of his. In his own words: "An image keeps on coming back to me. It is of a person wearing a protective coronavirus mask, and the person has tears streaming down their face. The tears fall onto the desert sand and water the desert, and lo and behold, these tears cause beautiful flowers to spring up from the barren earth. Associated with this idea is the one that after this dark cloud of the coronavirus has passed, the sun will shine again, and the Faith will be alivened. People will see their neighbour in a different way, and there will be a great revival. In times of crisis, God and the natural world are great sources of joy, strength and comfort....

Icons of Saints

Over the years I have been privileged to receive commissions to paint icons of saints for individuals, churches and religious communities. Each commission has been an opportunity to interpret the life and spirituality of a particular saint while remaining rooted in the Christian iconographic tradition. Together, they represent many years of commissioned work and my continuing exploration of sacred art. The following selection shows some of the commissioned icons I have painted over the years. Saint Michael Saint Raphael Saint Theresa of Avila Saint Veronica Saint Catherine of Siena Saint Bernadette Saint Camillus Saint Clare Saint Issac Blue Madonna Commissioning an Icon If y...

Star of the Sea - Ave Stella Maris

Star of the Sea, Ave Stella Maris Star of the Sea, Our Lady is an ancient title for the Virgin Mary. The words 'Star of the Sea" are also translated into Latin "Ave Stella Maris". A2 (16.5 x 23.4 inches) print including a white border on Hahnemühle German Etching 310gsm paper, comes embelished with gold leaf and hand signed. Price: £140.00

Star of the Sea (Gaelic)

Star of the Sea, Our Lady is an ancient title for the Virgin Mary. The words 'Star of the Sea" are also translated into Scottish Gaelic "Reul Alainn A' Chuain". A2 (16.5 x 23.4 inches) print including a white border on Hahnemühle German Etching 310gsm paper, comes embellished with gold leaf and hand signed.

Trueburn Stove (Uist Stove)

Trueburn stove, South Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. This stove was in use within the island crofts particularly during the 1950's. The artist lived in this croft house in Locheynort when he arrived in 1977 to teach art on South Uist. There was no electricity in Locheynort, so the painting was made under the light of the pleasant sounding Tilley lamp hanging from a beam. The stove is burning peat from the bog, which is in front of the house, and the oven was used for drying out wet shoes. The kettle was in constant use as was the old iron heating up on the stove. Giglée print on water colour paper. A2 size with white border. This A2 (16.5 x 23.4 inches) print including a white border on Hahnemühle German etching 310 gsm paper, comes hand signed. Truburn Stove is a favorite print, from small 4 x 6 inch prints to A2 size and even a large scale print for a kitchen wall. It is printed on a fabric called Scrol...

Commissions

Scholar, 2018 The Table, 2018 The Gift, 2018 La Sagrada Familia, 2018 Róisin, 2018 'Sittin upon a Wall, upon a Sunday', 2018

Blue Madonna, Mary Mother of God

How must Mary have felt when she encountered the Angel Gabriel and was asked to allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow her and thus conceive the Christ Child? Saint Augustine in his Sermons says about Mary: “When the angel had spoken, she, filled with faith and conceiving Christ first in her mind before she did so in her womb, replied: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word’.” (Sermon 215) In another sermon on the Nativity, he makes the same contrast between Mary’s conceiving the Eternal Word in her mind through faith and conceiving him in her womb. It works better in Latin: Angelus nuntiat, Virgo audit, credit et concepit: Fides in mente, Christus in Ventre. (The Angel announces : the Virgin hears, believes and conceives: faith in her mind, Christ in her womb) Saint Augustine also makes the obvious link with us when he says: The mother carried him in her womb, but we do so in our heart – or mind, through faith, as she first did. Therefore ‘Blessed is she...

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius film [full video] The Dream of Gerontius film [chapter videos] The Dream of Gerontius was written by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman in 1865. It is a dramatic poem which portrays the death of an old man and what happens to his soul as he enters into eternity and the state of Purgatory. Newman discovered much about the teaching of Purgatory from the Fathers of the Catholic Church when he was writing his "Essay on development of Doctrine". The musician and composer Edward Elgar began work on the "Dream of Gerontius" in 1900. The painting of the Dream of Gerontius was commissioned by the Pitt-Payne family from Alesbury in 2003, and is painted on wood with acrylic and gold leaf. The visual presentation of the painting is broken up into 8 parts which is just as much part of the symbolic language of the painting as the rich colour, the gold leaf for the Heavenly realm the unborn child in baptismal shawl surrounde...