A retired vicar from Wales has spend a lifetime connecting faith and art.
Wales onLine tells his story:
Andrew Vessey has spent decades combining his faith and his passion for art. But while many of his paintings, pastels and drawings elude to his Christianity, he also loves depicting the stunning landscapes he comes across while out walking in the countryside.
Now a selection of his work is on show as part of the Swansea Festival of Music and Arts. The exhibition at Taliesin Arts Centre marks a return to the city where Vessey spent five years until his retirement a year ago as team rector of Swansea central churches, including St Mary’s.
As well as featuring around 60 artworks, the larger works also have poems, penned by Vessey, connected to them. But he says it wasn’t a straight case of a painting inspiring a poem or vice versa.
“Sometimes I would write a poem and that would start the process of thinking about the art,” says the Chelsea School of Art graduate.
“But other times I would paint and the poetry would then fit with the painting. It’s a parallel thinking process and that’s what I like about it. I taught art for many years and would tell my students that paintings encouraged thinking and were not just a dollop of art.”