2024 marks the fourth year that Wycliffe Hall has participated in the Oxford Art Weeks exhibitions and we look forward to welcoming you to our College. This year we are featuring pottery and ceramic sculptures, oil and acrylic paintings, iconography, pastels, watercolours, textiles, fashion work, digital art, mixed media and drawings. Some of the artists will be available to discuss their artwork with guests and visitors.
Pablo Picasso once described art as ‘a lie that enables us to see the truth’. Wycliffe Hall is committed to fostering a New Renaissance, a vision of fresh thinking, scholarship, new wisdom and inspiration in our culture. The beauty and inspiration that artists bring to us is often a profound revelation, a new strength, shining light and joy into our daily routines, responsibilities and the challenges that are an inevitable part of life. Theologian Abraham Kuyper stated that art is ‘one of God's richest gifts to mankind’ commenting that the best art is designed to inspire us with the good and beautiful. It is a restoration of something our world has lost through the corrupting influence of evil and wrongdoing. The current world crisis, and the uncertainty and challenges facing us all give us pause to reflect upon his wise words. ‘Beauty will save the world’, to slightly misquote Fyodor Dostoevsky! The truth remains that inspired art always has the power to move and motivate us, to communicate the power of love through creative beauty. The highest forms of art transcend the ordinary and mundane, pointing to a greater inspirational Light, encouraging engagement, thought, interaction and personal response.