St Michael's Church, Calais

Study in memory of a visit to the church in the refugee camp in Calais in January 2016. The background image is painted with French chalk and other pigments. The top layer is made from coloured mica/pearl lustre dots that are a way of trying to represent the inner space that I was invited to enter but did not photograph. The colour of these varies with the light that falls upon it. They in some way represent the bright fabrics that were hanging there in contrast with the mud and chaos of the outside. The visit that I was trying to describe by making this painting was a profoundly spiritual one, although for me it was not religious. There were three women standing apart from each other down one side of the enclosure, their faces hidden, who were completely still and silent, praying intensively. A small girl aged about three or four years old played in the space around them. Though it's walls were made of a thin canvas lined with silken fabrics, it felt like a solid haven of peace and hope. It has since been demolished, but a but a new one was rebuilt.