An Evening of Conversation: Belief, Faith, and the Secular World
Join us for a thought-provoking evening centered around a striking series of redux crucifixion paintings, in St Martin’s Chapel, University of Cumbria.
13 May 2025 - 13 May 2025
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Event Overview
John Bratby's Golgotha work, and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Dr Martin Fowler’s new series – Golgotha Too – will act as catalysts for an open conversation on belief, faith, religion, and life in a secular society. Dr Fowler will be joined by University of Cumbria Chaplain Clare Shepherd, and Professor of Social Philosophy Tom Grimwood.
About Dr Martin Fowler, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art.
Born in Portobello, Edinburgh and trained in Drawing & Painting at Glasgow School of Art, Winchester School of Art and the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, Fowler is currently a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at University of Cumbria. Prior to this, he spent 6 years working full-time as an Art Lecturer within the Scottish prison system working predominantly with life-sentence prisoners and young offenders.
Taking their title from John Bratby’s Golgotha (1965), Fowler's Golgotha Too and its redux crucifixions offer an aesthetic and philosophical counter to Bratby's ‘kitchen-sink’ realism whilst seeking to repurpose the tradition of crucifixion painting within contemporary British painting.
As such, Fowler's atheist Presbyterian paintings propose a deliteralised interpretation of the Resurrection story whilst seeking to explore the complex interface between Christian narrative and secular society’s notions of morality, power and social justice.
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