Brian Whelan (NOAH)

Brian Whelan

It’s a Sign, Noah, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 36” (123 x 92 cm)

Noah stands inside the ark with the animals. He welcomes back the dove he had sent out earlier to search for land. The dove shows signs of our polluted world. It is covered in oil, has a rope hanging from its legs and in its beak, it holds not an olive branch, but a plastic six pack drinking can holder.

A counterpoint to the dove is the rainbow, the sign of hope and the promise that God will not bring another flood. This time it is mankind that threatens life on the planet. The signs are evident.

Get Ahead, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18” (61 x 46 cm)

Media fills our heads with hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, tsunamis and floods happening all over the world. For us to prepare for disaster to come, we must use prayer and our imaginations to both anticipate the future and to mitigate the consequences. This painting depicts the moon passing in front of the sun. Throughout history eclipses were portents that predicted a calamitous future. What can each of us do, however small, to lessen the impact of global warming and the polluting of our planet?

Gangway, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18” (61 x 46 cm)

As resources get more and more scarce due to climate change, wars break out and out of fear, humanity becomes one great migration. Broken families stand on the edge of the pier with nowhere left to run. In this painting the viewer becomes part of the painting. We must ask ourselves two questions: Can we help these desperate people escape from the terror of scarcity and the violence that comes as a result? Could this be us?

Brian Whelan grew up in London, of Irish parents. After his training at the Royal Academy of Arts, he lived and worked in the East Anglia area of England near the North Sea. His home and studio are now based in Connecticut, USA.

Known to combine the profundity of play with the intent of icons, his paintings have been exhibited in noted art spaces, cathedrals and religious institutions around the world - such as Washington National Cathedral and Villanova University of Pennsylvania in the USA, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and Norwich Cathedral in the UK, and Parador Dos Reis Catolicos, Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Whelan’s work follows in the tradition of East Anglian medieval narrative painting.

For more information: brianwhelanart.com

COMING SOON

Watch a short video of Brian Whelan in his studio reflecting on the exhibition