Author: aidan

During a recent trip to St George’s Church, Houston, Texas, Aidan had the pleasure of giving two video interviews on a pair of large mosaics that were installed in the church in 2017.

Commissioned by the magazine of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Praxis, this article describes the struggles of an iconographer to paint icons worthily, all the more demanding because it is an impossible task. What is the nature of likeness? How is a new icon created? What challenges confront an iconographer in the 21^st century?

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A sermon at Hertford College, Oxford University, this talk puts academic study in the context of our desire for God and His desire for us. The study of creation can be to track footprints until we come to the Walker Himself.

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Icon painting has always been affected by the surrounding culture, incorporating and transforming elements from it. And more recently, icons in turn have been appropriated by and affected that culture. These are the very topical themes that I  discuss in this article.

Click here to read the article on the Orthodoxy in Dialogue website

A talk given in Oxford on 27th February 2015 at  Kellogg College, Oxford.  The growing demand for icons, both in Romania and elsewhere, requires more good iconographers, and also the means of training them. This talk therefore suggests some answers to the following questions: What should this training aim for? What theological and aesthetic principles make for a well painted icon? 

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Aidan was invited  back to Lincoln Cathedral in November 2015, on the Feast of St Hugh, to give a talk to the College of Canons. The talk reflects on the genesis and the carving of Our Lady of Lincoln (which now sits at the east end of the cathedral), as well as the future of liturgical art in Britain.

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Icons depict people who are full of the Holy Spirit. These saints are radiant with the same divine glory seen by Peter, James and John when Christ was transfigured. But how does an iconographer paint an icon of a contemporary saint of whom photographs exist and affirm both visible and invisible realities? This interview with Aidan was published in an article by David Clayton on the website “The Way oF Beauty”.

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Click here to read the original article with pictures

A talk given at the conference  ‘Eastern Christian Thought and Practice for 21st Century Europe’ organised by the the Theotokos Institute for Catholic Studies. The subject of the talk was liturgical beauty, especially the beauty of the icon, and the role it can play in drawing people closer to Christ, both in worship and in mission.

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An article commissioned by the Orthodox Arts Journal about the eminent Russian icon painter of our times, Archimandrite Zenon. The article contains many useful links to websites with images of his work and also to videos that show him painting. Probably the longest article about Father Zenon that exists in the English language. 

Click here to read the article online

Click here to download the article in PDF format (currently without images)

Finally installed in September after nine months of labour, this massive hand wrought iron screen measures 3.3 x 2.7 metres ( 11 x 9  ft). It was hand-forged by master blacksmith Frazer Picot of Shropshire, and was designed by Aidan Hart. It is probably the largest hand wrought screen of this complexity to have been made for a church in Britain for decades. It bears a large icon of the Archangel Gabriel, paired with another icon of the Virgin placed on the other side of the sanctuary which together form the Annunciation.

For further explanation of the icons’ and screen’s meaning, click here to download an article in PDF format.

Humanity was created to go on a journey from Paradise towards the New Jerusalem. But when a culture aims at a utopia, its art, ecology and community life suffer the consequences. This talk, given in Austin, Texas,  considers what insights the icons of the Transfiguration and Pentecost can offer us to help us regain our bearings

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A talk given at St. Mary’s University College in Calgary, Canada in May 2013, which outlines the theological basis of liturgical art and discusses some of the theological and practical challenges facing its development in the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches.

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