PRESS RELEASE
Candle Screens
and Candle Trees
For the Chapel and St Michael’s Church, Winchester College
Installed December 2011
Designed and made by Charles Normandale
Assisted by William Normandale
This commission was to design and create two candle lit elements that would compliment the sculptures of the Madonna and Child by Peter Eugene Ball in the Chapel of Winchester College and in St Michael’s Chapel also on the campus.
A personal aim in all my sculptural work is to achieve an empathy with the viewer.
To stimulate thought, recollection and memory and also for the piece to sit comfortably and relate well to its environment.
Here the pieces create a visual portal that draw the eye towards each Madonna inviting personal translation of meaning. The grid structure forged in mild steel disappears into areas of negative space, tangible yet intangible to be completed by the eye and the mind. Spike forms may suggest the Crucifixion, twelve halos of light reflected in the bronze candle holders, the Apostles.
In St Michael’s Chapel arching forms in stainless steel reflect the colours of the interior and lead upwards and inwards bathing the Madonna in a soft feminine light and possibly suggesting growth, renewal and eternal hope.
The intension is not to be prescriptive or to preach but to focus the congregation, to invite contemplation and to enhance the spirit of place.
