I like the moment when Jonah goes ‘off-grid’ in the belly of the whale – a sort of drowning that actually ends up being a complete transformation, because, of all places, God shows up. It’s a vivid story, which I’ve always loved because Jonah decided to go off-grid on his own terms in the first place. God didn’t teleport him back to land, but trounced his effort to remove himself with an even deeper dimension.
The piece shown here, Storm, was originally made in 2007, and was a commission for a naval officer. I’ve incorporated photographs of the sea in Cornwall, as well as screenshots from the TV series The Blue Planet (about to be shown on the BBC again – see here), and sketched details of snowflakes, spirographs and echoes of Hiroshige’s The Great Wave. Last year, a version of the piece was also used on the cover of Paul Hedley Jones’ book Job’s Way Through Pain: Karma, Cliches and Questions. Jonah, importantly, isn’t visible, but his journey is – from tempest to depth. Blue almost becomes the subject, and I mean to cloud its traditional meaning in Christian art as heaven, with something that’s about a kind of washing and sinking before any sense of cleansing and rising.
The laundry room here at Trinity is a fitting place for this piece. Why not find Jonah at the bottom of the building, submerged in water, spinning next to the washing machines? In College, as in spiritual life, so much happens that’s off-centre, away from the spotlight, where things are still dirty. If that’s where God shows up, I want my work to be there too.
Header image: Storm, 2007 (installation at Trinity College, 2014), by Sheona Beaumont.
