John Rattigan’s The Angel Project – was originally, in pre-lockdown years, part of a touring exhibition where he invited fellow artists, based in and around the Midlands, to make a personal response to some aspect of the time honoured visual conventions or narratives associated with Angels.

As this theme formed a central part of his work John continued to explore it in subsequent years as an individual project, saying;

‘Although angels play a significant role in a number of key biblical narratives, references to their actual physical appearance are surprisingly few and far between. That job has been left to artists to resolve. Paradoxically, in striving to describe these otherworldly, celestial beings artists have cast them as reflections of human kind, albeit a few steps removed.

I couldn’t resist visualising the angels in my work as messengers grappling with the practicalities of being earthbound. Falling angels as well as fallen angels, they sometimes find themselves getting entangled in trees or are seen practicing flight manoeuvres (a school for angels). In other versions I envisage them in playful or mischievous moods, dancing or cavorting in their free time or even painting their own halos!’