By Stephen Cranston

I became a lifelong admirer of the Isenheim Altarpiece (above) after chancing upon a book about Matthias Grünewald when I was teenager. It’s a multi-layered and multi-panelled work of weird and wonderful gruesome beauty. While working on a personal project in 2016 with a commitment to making one collage for each fortnight of the year, I saw that I had an opportunity to create my own altarpiece.

And that’s when the project started...

Prior to this project, most of my collages had been created on-the-fly, but this one was going to take some preparation. To roughly match the silhouette of the Isenheim, I settled upon the pentaptych format. Employing a method of free association, responding to my bank of images as though wearing Renaissance retro-spectacles, I plotted the composition of the three main panels simultaneously. The brief I had set myself that year was to create aesthetically pleasing images that become disturbing upon closer inspection, and that each consecutive collage should be more complex than its predecessor.

Work on the first three panels of the altarpiece was a joy and all went surprisingly smoothly. However, I was stumped as to what to do with the top and bottom panels. Ordinarily these things just pop into my head and I’d expected some sort of an idea to form while working on the main three. If I remember correctly, I was in the middle of a dumbbell floor press when the idea finally hit me of creating Penrose triangles suspended in mid-air. I’d never even drawn one before, but I can remember fathoming how I could assemble them, whilst lifting. The idea of using a hexagon in a semicircular panel came at the same time. I was very excited by this, and I think I may have even got to work learning how to draw them that night. A few days later I had completed ‘The Shepherd Lord’: my first pentaptych paper collage.

As it got closer to the end of the year, with lots of collages in between, I decided that, because I’d had such an enjoyable time making it, I would construct another pentaptych. I liked the idea of creating a narrative, and given the appearance of religious artwork, I thought something akin to the Stations of the Cross that can be seen in some churches, was the way to go. To reinforce the notion that these were part of a series I decided to use the exact same dimensions as the first.

‘The Key (Left Side)’ and ‘The Key (Right Side)’ (pictured below) were completed in July that year. I’m very proud of these two. I’d been soaking up influences and had stumbled upon illustrations of The Lesser Key of Solomon. My ‘key’ was a kind of guide to the demons you might find in a fey version of scenic Britain – the landscapes all sourced from photogravure tourist guidebooks of the 1950s.

I had emulated the magic and mysticism of alchemical illustrations I’d looked at during my art school days by introducing sacred geometry, Penrose impossible geometry, and presenting them as multi-panel polyptych altarpieces, intertwining the semiotics of the renaissance with the esotericism of alchemy and the occult.

I was also burnt out. A chaotic period at work along with a string of injuries and illnesses followed, and my energy to make art waned. Like a pound shop Marcel Duchamp, giving up art for chess, I packed-in collage art for Warhammer!

The Key (Left Side)_2017_paper collage_Stephen Cranston.jpg

The Key (Right Side)_2017_paper collage_Stephen Cranston.jpg

I have contemplated the significance of this and I think that at least part of my attraction to it is the similarity to the scintillating scotoma I sometimes experience. I believe some people get them while suffering a migraine headache, which fortunately for me, I do not. I have however, had the ‘excitement’ of experiencing them while out solo-hiking. Would not recommend. (I do recommend you look them up if unaware).

I returned to work, and after six months of nonsense with no energy to collage again, I quit. One month after that and I was making art again and have continued to do so ever since.

The workshop where I worked had no windows and the only way to get any sunlight through the day was to grab a few minutes during a quiet period and stand outside the shutters for some vitamin D. It just so happens that opposite the shutters is Ebor Studio (a collective art space). It’s not that I was intentionally looking that way, but I must have gazed at that place for years. I’d known the director well enough to say hello when passing, and she had invited me to apply for membership several times over the course of ten years or so. After leaving the job, I bumped into her again, and this time I took up her invitation and applied.

At the time of writing I’ve been a member for almost a year. In that time I’ve been part of an associate members show for which I made ‘Salmon of Knowledge’ (a polygon made entirely out of photogravure seascapes); had a sneaky last minute solo show; made ‘Hear the Screaming in the Trees’ (again, entirely created using photogravures) for the cover of the Autumn/Winter programme; and become an active member of the community there. I’ve recently had two proposals for exhibitions approved: one a collaborative project with a photographer to be exhibited in November; and a group show which will see me finally complete the pentaptych sequence, next year (which we hope to tour). I have also built my own website and print shop.