c.janet driver "Darfur Madonna" was painted well over 10 years go, before we retired from our parish in Tooting...an area of mainly people of African or Afro-Caribbean origins... it was painted as a prayer-painting for the people of the Sudan, particularly the women and young children who, like this lady, had had to flee from their homes as villages were burnt down and all vegetable crops destroyed by rebel fighters... sound familiar ? yes, sadly South Sudan has suffered intermittently during this whole decade and is once more inthe news as their government seeks to restore law and order... fighting... drought...devastating floods... famine... and now covid... this "Darfur Madonna" sadly still stands as a prayer-painting for those who have survived through aid agencies support...hoping to help rebuild lives into the new year and beyond...

Annual Art Exhibition 20th & 21st June 2015 at Elmstead Church

this exhibition is in a lovely old church with a lot of daylight flooding through the windows to light up the paintings... Whilst deciding what to choose to exhibit, I happened to read this article about renewed violence in the Darfur area of Sudan:

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/why-is-the-world-blind-to-the-fresh-threat-of-genocide-in-darfur

and this made me decide to include the "Darfur Madonna" I painted a few years ago...

 ...when the plight of refugees in Darfur first began, and pictures of hundreds of women and young children were flooding the media...I found these images so moving I made a quick sketch of one of countless women queuing for food with a young child sitting atop a pitifully small bundle of their belongings ... then began the slow process of building up dozens of thin glazes of oil paint...
 a slow  meditative process
enabling me to pray whilst painting

Epiphany

"In the beginning was the Word...the Word was the true light that enlightens all humankind... John 1 v 1-18

Maybe one year I will be inspired to paint the Maji daring to follow the star... however, some years ago I followed my 'star' / vision / intuition: to try and communicate the beginning of John's Gospel : his poetic Prologue... and over the years I have painted several versions, hoping each time to go more deeply into this mystery.

click this link for my website: www.janetdriver.co.uk

One Christmas I asked : If Christ were born these days, where would we be most likely to find him ?  Of course I could have painted any baby, anywhere, for surely each one of us reveals a glimpse of God's likeness in some way or another? But at the time the TV news was full of the Sudan refugee crisis, and showing starving mothers & young children flooding into refugee camps, and in order to pray for them I began drawing ... and decided to paint a Madonna & Child based  on these images, as a prayer painting.  I share this painting here

in the hope that within our darkest night Christ comes among us in some hidden way.