The journey goes way back. I was shown a way and a faith, and an understanding around the faith of Christianity, in the way my father lived – he was a man who’d been served as an example to me in the way he led his life. I’d go to church with him at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, which sowed a seed in me. It led me towards this question: “Where is my faith?”
The Face of Christ has been with me for over 40 years. I have searched for His face through my art as part of my spiritual journey, and also in the work of many others – especially Renaissance artists like Giotto, Piero della Francesca and Michelangelo. When I was an art student at Chelsea I had a wonderful teacher who sent us to the British Museum for a day, and it was there I encountered the Parthenon Frieze with the Horse of Selene, which was to change my life. The image consumed me and I was shown the strength, poise and majesty of the horse, carved by the Greeks with perfect precision and excellence.
With this in mind, I began my own attempt at the <a href="https://www.nicfiddiangreen.com/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">subject of the horse</mark></a>. To me it makes total sense that the horse can be the one subject that has directed my career as an artist, alongside the image of Christ. My faith has travelled with me continuously and never really wavered – the horse is powerful, beautiful, a creature of help, a partner to man both peaceful and courageous. The horse carries us – just as God our creator does. I see the link clearly, and the older I get the clearer this relationship becomes.
My first commission was the Stations of the Cross at Wintershall, when I was 22 years old. Ann Hutley asked if I might help her with the project, which she felt compelled to create after a life-changing visit to Medjugorje. Her daughter Henrietta (who is my now wife) was a friend from college, and we worked on this project with her mother for over a year. It was the first of many times I attempted the subject of Christ. The Wintershall Stations are open to the public at 7 a.m. on every first Friday of the month, and the Way of the Cross followed come wind or rain. It has been a revelation to me and my family to see how God has drawn so many to this place, which began with a mustard seed of an art student and a housewife.
How do we ever find His face, His light and hold on to it? As we continue to search, we encounter moments of His presence, if we are lucky, and like mist on an early April morning He seems to be there, close and real – and then gently, unnoticed, disappears as the sun rises leaving us healed but still questioning. Encounters are rare and never forgotten: unexpected moments in unexpected places, on His terms and not ours. And so it is with my bag of clay in my studio, alone as I search for His face. This exhibition is an account of Him whom I hope to have found.
My personal journey through life has had both its ups and downs, particularly with leukaemia and other cancer diagnoses. These illnesses have brought me to realise my fragility and my dependence on God and His healing power should I be fortunate enough to be shown it; to glance up and search for His power to live a little longer, to get a little stronger, eat a little more, to try a little harder together with my friends and my family. One of the great axioms of life is the ability to accept our suffering and to accept that life is a journey of learning and understanding through difficulties.
It seems to me that through suffering we discover our strength and our weakness; I have plunged deep into depression and fear and surfaced in the bright sunshine of a spring day and realised my life has changed. It is my view that a life without suffering is unavoidable but as human beings we desperately seem to try everything to resist and run from it: suffering is meant for someone else, not me. But God has a different plan, and I need to remind myself daily “Thy will be done”.
And so it is with joy and fear combined that I present my personal reflections and story in clay transformed to bronze, lead, silver, marble…the materials of earth which I have been intrigued by and played with since I was a child. I began in a garden playing with mud, then at some point was given Lego and began to build; then I was directed not to draw on the kitchen table but given a pencil and paper.
I have been given materials to use by the God of heaven and earth, and it is my hope that some of these pieces may rest and resonate with those who see it; that they may find a deep connection by gazing on the works which takes the eye, the heart and the soul to the One who helped me create them.
<a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/virtue-over-individualism-is-the-call-that-leads-to-true-flourishing/"><strong><em>RELATED: Virtue over individualism is the call that leads to true flourishing</em></strong></a>
<em>For more info on exhibit: <a href="https://www.nicfiddiangreen.com/exhibition/the-face-of-christ-2025/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The Face of Christ, 2025 - Nic Fiddian Green</mark></a></em>
