The Heart of Things

An Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Installation by Paul Hobbs

Tuesday 30th January till Saturday 3rd February - and for viewing by the congregations at all services on Sunday 4th Feb, at St Mary's Church, Maidenhead.

Wooden blocks coloured like liquorice allsorts and coated with news headlines, a machete in a box, a cloth woven with names, a circle of shoes arranged around a tree - there is plenty to amuse, challenge and disturb here. What is compassion? Where is God in suffering? How do we value ourselves and others? Are the ten commandments relevant today?

This show wrestles with questions of life in the context of faith.

It is a mixture of painting, sculpture and installation, and includes figurative, abstract and conceptual images, news articles and ready-made objects. Variously vibrant, playful, disturbing and heart-warming, the artwork challenges us about issues of faith, justice and human dignity.

The themes cover all kinds of social and religious issues, and have proved most engaging and challenging with every kind of audience, young or old, religious or atheist, artistic or not. The exhibits include work on famine, old age, fatherhood, our capacity for violence, suffering, the Beatitudes and the Trinity.

Paul Hobbs will be in attendance to speak with visitors about his work most of this time, and will be giving tours of the show to school classes and other groups. He exhibits in a variety of contexts: galleries, art centres, schools, churches, cathedrals and festivals. Within the last year he has exhibited and given talks at St Germain's Church in Edgbaston, Hexham Abbey and St John's Church in Gloucester.

Paul Hobbs was born in Nigeria in 1964, and studied Social and Political Science at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Fine Art at The Byam Shaw School of Art.

Further work by Paul Hobbs can be seen on www.arthobbs.com. He can be contacted via the site or during the show on 07985 308428.

For further details please e-mail: .