Turning into the car park of St Chad's Church from Rubery's main shopping street, one is faced with a series of windows glazed with glass bricks topped with a wall of flat, black slate broken up by a number of vertical white, concrete lines. Adjacent to this frontage appears a 67' high open tower from which two bells hang. The building is very obviously a post-war structure. It is neither pretty nor revealing of the light, open interior--a space that is at once calm and uplifting, constructed with a limited palette of carefully chosen materials: stone, concrete and Lagos mahogany. In fact, there is something rather imposing about the exterior, its height made more striking by what appear as five narrow, black panels stretching up to the apex of the copper roof.

The observant visitor will also notice a quintet of small, empty plinths, wrapped in copper that is green with age, one protruding slightly from the bottom of each slate rectangle. The narrow platforms appear to float redundantly. Indeed, there is something missing--the black slate was intended to be a canvas, a backdrop for an artist's commission that spent only a matter of weeks on the front of the building prior to its consecration in December 1959. As soon as the copper supports are recognised as such it is quite obvious that whatever they were designed to carry is simply not there.

St Chad's, Rubery, Birmingham was designed by architect Richard Twenty-man working with partners Lavender and Percy. The church is one of nine built by Twentyman between 1938 and 1965 and like those other buildings, St Chad's was conceived to include work by artists commissioned directly by the architects. In Rubery, this meant Geoffrey Clarke, an artist now renowned for his ecclesiastical work but for whom the sculptural reliefs he intended here marked a significant shift in his practice.

Born in Derbyshire in 1924 it is perhaps not surprising that Clarke became an artist whose career flourished within church buildings. His father, an architect, was an enthusiastic amateur etcher and his grandfather, a church furnisher. (1) His time at Preston School of Art and Lancaster School of Art straddled WWII and he subsequently secured a place at the Royal College of Art. Here, he made a swift move away from the Graphic Design Department into that of Stained Glass, a place in which he felt more able to explore a pictorial approach. (2) The move proved fruitful and ultimately saw him, then 27 years old, being selected by Basil Spence to work on the nave windows for the soon to be reconstructed Coventry Cathedral. But running parallel to this extraordinary commission, Clarke, still at the Royal College, was keen to express his ideas in a more concrete form. He sought out a forge and anvil and began to produce linear works, constructing imagery as if drawing in three dimensions. (3) He spent many hours at the British Museum studying primitive objects, integrating their form and nature into symbols that appeared in both his sculptural work and his etching. He also produced his student thesis; a series of etchings and a text entitled Exposition of a Belief. By 1957, he had also been commissioned by Richard Twentyman to produce a sequence of reliefs for the front of St Chad's Church, Rubery.

At this point, I should declare my bias. Since September 2014, I have been Priest in Charge at St Chad's Rubery and at some point prior to my licensing here, was the visitor who looked up and, without knowledge of Clarke's commission, wondered about those five empty plinths. It was only conversations with the congregation that led me to realise they were not intended to punctuate the black slate but rather to support a set of sculptures. One longstanding member of the congregation said

   Oh yes, they came and put them up,
   then [N] came along and said
   "you're not having that" and they came
   straight down.

Another commented

   The sculptures, yes, I think we were
   meant to have some figures.

In fact, whilst the original commission referred to the possibility of producing work that represented, either as life-like reproductions or as symbols, the Virgin and Child, St John the Baptist, St Nicholas, St Chad and St Stephen, the then Vicar contributed to the commissioning process by suggesting panels representing scenes from the book of Revelation. (4)

This would certainly not be Clarke's first ecclesiastical commission. Clarke had been proposed by John Piper who was also working on projects for Coventry Cathedral and who would have been aware of the sculptor's iron sculptures produced for a private oratory at the Bridge of Allan, windows installed in both a church in Australia and at All Saints, Stretford and his ongoing work on a cross, aumbry and altar frontal for St James, Shere. (5) Although young, Clarke was not inexperienced or new to working in the public sphere. Indeed, his drive to be a 'public artist' is noted by Peter Black in a 1994 exhibition catalogue as the reason for his interest in for example, primitive pottery. Black comments,

   So primitive pottery impressed him because the designers were
   artists whose work was not merely part of 'consumption' but was
   integrated into the life of the spirit. The painted or incised work
   is more than decoration because it becomes part of the celebration
   of the meal or ritual associated with it. (6)

Integrating his work into the lives of those around him, acting as a catalyst for spiritual encounter or a site of transcendental searching appears to have been fundamental to Clarke's practice. Reproduced in part by Judith LeGrove in her book, Geoffrey Clarke: a sculptor's prints (7), Clarke's student thesis, Exposition of a Belief, sets out his artistic proposition. It begins,

   Exposition of a belief. A belief that man is dependent upon
   external influences and one supreme force, a part of which is
   within him, and that he has to unify this supreme force for
   existence. (8)

So Clarke was neither inexperienced nor unsuited to the context or nature of the commission but the way in which Clarke worked was changing. Up until this point, sculptures were made predominately in iron or bronze, the latter being particularly expensive and time consuming to work with. Yet the final results didn't appear laboured or overworked. Work like Complexities of Man, 1951, a group of tall iron rods balanced on an iron support that extends from a rock at their base convey a lightness of touch. The utilitarian metal, 'firmer' in appearance to that of say, Giacometti, is adorned with symbols--the whole sculpture stretching precariously upwards. It has a beguiling awkwardness and there is something instant about the work. It is gestural without being frivolous. Clarke clearly needed a process that facilitated the development of his thinking and his making; something practical yet sympathetic.

Aluminium casting provided the answer. Initially, as was the case for the St Chad's commission (possibly the first to be cast at the foundry Clarke had set up at his home in Suffolk) molten aluminium was simply poured into sand trays into which marks, indentations and shapes had been made. This work was experimental and a departure from Clarke's previous method of production; here the artist is on the cusp of something new. As he subsequently developed this method, Clarke began to bury expanded polystyrene blocks shaped using hot wires in sand which then vaporised as the hot metal was poured in. (9) However, even in its early manifestation, the use of aluminium meant that moulds were no longer needed and the work could more accurately reflect the drawn, linear nature of Clarke's sketches and etchings. Of course, the speed at which these things could be produced and the relatively inexpensive nature of the aluminium also negated the need for maquettes, a key artist's tool when communicating ideas to those commissioning work.

Perhaps it was the immediacy of Clarke's process that prevented him from communicating more fully what his intentions were to either the architect or the church. Or perhaps the relationship between the architect and the church was such that robust conversations about the work under construction did not take place. The archive doesn't shed much light on this part of the story but we do know that when the five aluminium reliefs, the back-plate of each measuring 152cm x 76cm and produced using this radical method of cast aluminium were installed at St Chad's in 1959, the then Diocesan Advisory Committee decided that

   while not wishing to discourage artists from employing modern
   idioms, the plaques were not considered to convey 'theological
   truth' and were therefore inappropriate for use in a Christian
   Church' (10)

The reliefs, now entitled Square World I--V were subsequently removed before the consecration of the building.

Clarke was asked to provide an explanation of the symbols inherent within the plaques but no known record of this description exists. However, the symbols visible within the work echo those that had been emerging from his practice during the preceding ten years. Indeed, his search for truth and the means of representing it underpins his entire body of work. Surely, at the time, conversations were had/could have been had to clarify the nature of both the process and the resulting sculptures before such a damming judgment was made? This was not an artist 'trying his luck' but one who seems to have been driven by a quest for a definitive 'alphabet of symbols. In Exposition of a Belief, he writes

   if [the symbol is] near perfect, then the barriers of the material
   are broken down, insight made, and witnessed, and the
   transformations from the tangible to the intangible accomplished.
   (11)

Likewise, the use of the phrase 'theological truth' is rather bizarre. If the phrase had been 'orthodox Christian understanding' or some such term that at least had the potential to be defined, one could perhaps forgive them. To suggest the work lacked 'theological truth' appears to negate an understanding of theology as either 'the systematic study of the ideas of a religion' or as 'faith seeking understanding' (13), perhaps the two most common definitions given for the word and certainly understandings that would have been shared by those involved in 1959. Clarke was seemingly engaged in both of these things--there was a strong spiritual impulse to the work. Though he would not define his own faith as specifically Christian it is clear that through his work there is a desire to connect with or mediate an encounter with the 'other'--perhaps even the 'divine' or as Clarke himself might have put it a 'supreme power'. What is such endeavour if not 'faith seeking understanding'?

Likewise, Clarke's quest for universally understood graphical representations included those of a spiritual nature--his interest in the cross admittedly had less to do with Christian symbolism than with its role as a universal archetype but nonetheless the cross became a repeated feature of Clarke's work where it spoke of 'man's spiritual receptivity'. (14) There is a visible, real and genuine 'study of the ideas of religion' here. Lack of 'theological truth'? I wonder if the sentiment behind the comment recalled by one of our congregation members says more about why the work didn't remain in situ; 'you're not having that.'

In fact, the imagery in the work offers the viewer an extraordinarily rich source of theological reflection. Judith LeGrove, a Clarke expert whose knowledge has enabled her to begin to interpret each panel describes the crosses formed at the meeting point of horizontal and vertical shafts as the meeting-point for the celestial and the terrestrial; fractured lines that point to a disjuncture between the material and the spiritual; Christ's birth represented by a crescent moon and a cross; curved lines of a serpent contained below a horizontal table-top horizon; lines delineating earth and heaven but holding a crook in one section and a cross in the other suggesting Christ's earthly and heavenly presence. (15)

However, the work was deemed 'inappropriate for use in a Christian Church.' (16)

Square World I-V has recently been acquired by the Ingram Collection and is currently on display at The Lightbox Gallery in Woking. The work is displayed in the gallery courtyard at eye level, significantly lower than what was intended but affording the viewer the benefit of seeing the rich texture of these glorious works in natural light. They are a silvery colour, almost white in places, with their raised linear symbols casting shadows across the rough surface. Apart from the cross and perhaps the curve of the shepherds crook the symbolism isn't obvious but there is enough--enough to invite the viewer into a conversation with the work, to join the artist in his search for understanding.

Clarke, who died in November 2014, would have approved of such an observation. He was convinced of the viewer's role in the construction of an artwork's 'meaning', if such a thing can ever be pinned down. Indeed, it can be argued that contemporary visual art is to a certain extent 'visual metaphysics'; at once an attempt to understand the world and to present a response, emotional or otherwise, to the experience of inhabiting or encountering the world. (17) The metaphysical nature of the contemporary art object is made apparent through its creative potential, hovering as it does, in the space between that which the artist intends and that which the viewer understands. Meaning is neither 'held' solely by the artist nor the viewer but rather, each artwork has an internal coherence or truth which seeks to be revealed to its audience. (18)

Spending even just a short period of time with Square World I-V, one is compelled to pay attention to its internal coherence: symbols crafted over time, perhaps spontaneously reproduced, seek to encourage a search for truth in both the maker and the audience; a gentle urgency suggests intuitive, honest gestures; a handmade, humble approach does not try to pretend; an open aesthetic where metal lines reach out of the frame towards something else, something transcendent. In this work, Clarke achieves an unpretentious attempt to ask big, searching questions.

I can't actually think of anything better to place on the front of a church.

St Chad's, Rubery is now in discussion with the Ingram Collection who have generously suggested they might loan Square World 1-V to the church. The current Birmingham Diocesan Advisory Committee are delighted by this development and look forward to welcoming the art work back to St Chad's in the near future.

(1.) Peter Black, Geoffrey Clarke: Symbols for Man, Sculpture and Graphic Work (London: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd)1994, p. 9

(2.) ibid

(3.) Black, Geoffrey Clarke: Symbols for Man, p. 11

(4.) Judith LeGrove, Fragile Visions: Reading and Re-Reading the Work of Geoffrey Clarke in Rina Arya (ed) Contemplations of the Spiritual in Art (Frankfurt: Peter Lang) 2013, p. 161-162

(5.) ibid

(6.) Black, Geoffrey Clarke: Symbols for Man, p. 11

(7.) Judith LeGrove, Geoffrey Clarke: a sculptor's prints (Bristol: Sansom and Company) 2012, pp 58-63

(8.) Geoffrey Clarke, Exposition of a Belief, 1951 in LeGrove, Geoffrey Clarke: a sculptor's prints, p. 59

(9.) Black, Geoffrey Clarke: Symbols for Man, p. 17-18

(10.) AR Twentyman, in a letter to Clarke, March '60 held in the Clarke archive and reproduced by LeGrove in Fragile Visions, p. 163

(11.) Geoffrey Clarke, Exposition of a Beliefin LeGrove 2012, p. 59

(12.) Alister E McGrath Christian Theology: An Introduction (Forth Edition published Oxford: Blackwell Publishing) 2007 p. 101

(13.) Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (eds) Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press) 2005 p. 1

(14.) Black, Geoffrey Clarke: Symbols for Man, p. 12

(15.) Judith LeGrove, Fragile Visions, p. 163

(16.) AR Twentyman, in a letter to Clarke, March '60 held in the Clarke archive and reproduced by LeGrove in Fragile Visions, p. 163

(17.) This description of art echoes that of art critic Nicolas Bourriaud in Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon: Les Presses du Reel, 1998, English Translation, 2002) p. 107

(18.) Rebecca Fortnum, On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, Paper presented to the On Not Knowing Symposium held at New Hall College Cambridge on 29/06/09 and available from http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/exhibitions/symposium.html [accessed 01/03/2012]

Claire Turner is Priest in Charge of St Chad's Church, Rubery, Birmingham