Father Elias - Art and Mysticism

Father Elias Polomski outside his exhibition at Caerbladon

Seeing art and prayer as ‘wings’ on which to rise to God, who is Love, has always been central to my life both as an artist and priest. Born in New York in 1942, studied in America, France and England, a Benedictine monk of Douai Abbey in Berkshire for ten years and a parish priest in the Diocese of Oxford for 17 years. My first major work - The Wings of God (1972-75) - in Boston, where I worked as a book designer for 12 years, is an illuminated manuscript of 50 hand-painted pages linking Old Testament themes, poems, songs and images derived from my favourite artists, like William Blake. Since 1990, I formed a group called ‘Scrivias,’ based on the vision of Hildegaard of Bingen seeing art, music, drama and dance as ways of knowing and loving God, as well as prayer, liturgy and theology - producing a series of 40 booklets and related paintings, icons, triptychs, polytychs, stained glass, mandalas, tableaux and prayed towers. These are visual meditations on universal themes such as Enlightenment, Transfiguration, the Tree of Life, Paradise, and beloved saints like Francis and John of the Cross and spiritual writers like Thomas Traherne (Landscapes of Glory) and Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain).

I’m especially interested in Interfaith Dialogue - the meeting of East and West and ancient or perennial wisdom of mysticism - be it Buddhist, Egyptian, Christian or Sufi. My art celebrates the unity of all religions in their respective search for God and the ultimate meaning of life. Serving the same basic human needs, hopes and desires, basic archetypes in the Jungian sense beneath all the symbols and languages, common to all God’s children and longing for the Unity of all Mankind in a universal Kingdom of Love.

Father Elias Polomski, September 2024