Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross 2008

Aishan Yu

St Andrew’s, Fulham Fields sponsored a competition for students at the Slade, which is part of the University of London and has produced many famous British painters and sculptors.

Nine artists entered the competition. The winning proposal is by Aishan Yu who will be creating paintings on ‘found objects’. The paintings blur the edges between representation and reality.

Fr Martin said:
‘The competition was organised so that there would be a high level of interaction between the students and the parish and the judging panel was made up of art experts from the university and elsewhere and also people from the local area. The result has been extremely fruitful and we are delighted with the first prize winner’s proposal’.

Prof John Aiken, Slade Professor, Director of the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL commented that:
‘The History of Art over several thousand years has been shaped by religious imagery. Most of the iconic works of art produced during the last millennium have had religious themes or been commissioned by the Church. This has had a unique and powerful influence on how figuration, landscape, architecture and narrative have been represented and perceived by many generations of artists. It is therefore interesting given that UCL was founded as a secular college that some of the most important works produced at the Slade have had religious themes e.g Stanley Spencer's famous painting " Nativity " 1912 or Augustus John's " Moses and the Brazen Serpent " 1898. It was difficult to judge how students, whose primary focus is on contemporary art , would respond to the invitation to make proposals for a specific religious theme and context. To my surprise the competition to propose work for the Stations of the Cross at St Andrews created a lot of interest and generated some very well conceived, high quality proposals from students in all the subject areas of the school and across both the undergraduate and graduate programmes. The judging process created a lot of very thorough discussion and debate and I am in no doubt that the winner Aishan Yu, a post graduate painting student , will produce some excellent work for installation early in the New Year. The competition has been a great success and has represented an opportunity for students to extend their practice and relate their work to a new context and community.’

Aishan Yu, winner of the competition said:
The project for me has been really exciting but also lots of hard work. Coming from China I only had a small understanding of what the Stations of the Cross actually were, and it has been fascinating discovering the story and its significance today. Also, what's been particularly exciting is that the story seems to fit in with some of the themes I am already dealing with within my work. I'm so happy to have won the competition and am looking forward to completing the works and installing them in the church in the New Year.

The opening night for the Stations of the Cross exhibition is on Friday 1st February from 7.30pm. The prize of £1000 will be presented to Aishan and there will be wine served. Indications of attendance to fathermartin@hotmail.co.uk would be appreciated but please feel free to arrive on the night.
The church will be open for viewing every monday from 7.30am to 11.30am, Tuesday from 7.30am to 12.30am and Thursday from 5pm to 8.30pm and at all services and events.

Take the tour Here and see all the art work in the order of the Stations of the Cross.