Rock of Ages

A new exhibition at Liverpool Cathedral shines a new light on its darkest recesses...

You don’t need us to tell you how inspiring our mighty Anglican cathedral is. But, while most of us confine our responses to a slight dropping of the jaw, maybe an ooh and ahhh here and there, for artist Colin Taylor, the Cathedral was a muse that’s led to a series of urgent and striking new images - about to be exhibited next month.

The event sets a new milestone for the Cathedral as it’s the first time they’ve hosted an entire exhibition inspired by the building itself, and by a single artist. Although what’s the betting Tracy Emin thinks the Cathedral was especially commissioned as a backdrop for her tweeting Roman Standard bird?

Taylor, best known for his landscape work, sees the Cathedral’s sandstone edifices and great vaulted ceilings as a mountaineer would appraise a rocky outstack, or towering cliff face, and his images certainly make us appreciate the space afresh. And possibly wish we’d brought our crampons with us.

“What fascinates me about the Cathedral is its internal scale and space as much as the huge physical parameters,” Taylor says. “The exhibition doesn’t depict a like for like representation of spaces within the Cathedral, rather how it feels to experience those spaces. I can’t think of a more fitting and fantastic venue to present these new works than the place that inspired it.”

Meanwhile, the vibrantly coloured Celtic symbolism of Derek Culley’s Golgotha, along the Cathedral’s Great West Doors, makes for a striking counterpoint to Taylor’s monochrome megaliths.

Light and shade. That’s what our great Cathedral has always done best. There’s probably a sermon in there, somewhere.

Cathedral Space, 7 March - 26 April, Free
Liverpool Cathedral