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Photos by Jan Chlebek

(St. Francis Receiving the Light of the Flaming Torch – El Greco)

An installation that has clipped branches adhered to the wall, recalling the directional flow of Bernini’s Ecstacy of Saint Teresa and its opposite, the strict penitence of Saint Francis, is dimly lit by a simple hand torch. Right of centre a strangely lopped crucifixion hangs, at once monumental and diminished. The rags of which it is sculpted give it the fragility of ancient graveclothes and the marble hardness of statuary; it appears drenched and permeated with a nameless sorrow and yet there is a secret sense of triumph in the voluptuous pleats and folds of the painted fabric that makes it glow like bronze.