Journey to Christmas: Geraldine Wheeler

Artist: Geraldine Wheeler

Artist Statement:

This was a response for Advent 2013 to the Brookfield Centre for Spirituality’s request for works of visual art on themes relating to John the Baptist’s call “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The work emerged for me as the counterpoint to “Jesus Falls” which I did for a Visionaries “Contemporary Stations of the Cross” exhibition in St.John’s Cathedral, 2008. In that, I placed the figure of the fallen Christ in the Queen Street Mall (Albert Street junction), the view looking up the mall. Most of the surrounding people took no notice of the fallen figure, just going their own ways. “O come, O come…” is set looking down the mallfrom the spot where I placed the fallen Christ figure, as I saw the mall in December 2012, with a choir singing Christmas carols. Such a song is a prayer for the place where it is sung and the wider world, “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” (See together in Song 265.)