Church of St Mary, Fairford, Gloucestershire

The late medieval stained glass of St Mary’s Church, Fairford, Gloucestershire has been a major influence on my work. I started my career working on these masterpieces, studying the iconography and narrative, obscured through centuries of damage. In closely observing the glass painting in order to replicate the style, I was especially drawn to the confident freedom of the painting and the heavy modelling used by the great Flemish artists of the early sixteenth century.

The Fairford windows contain both traditional standing figures divided by the stone mullions and narrative scenes which stretch and spread across the stonework, such as the West window depicting the Last Judgement. The traditional narrative, telling stories as ‘the poor man’s bible’, is intensified through the realistic depictions and direct gestural poses. The twenty-eight stained glass windows were designed for St Mary’s Church as a single coherent scheme, with both glass and stonework layered with symbolism and geometry, connecting with the viewer in an almost cinematic experience.