Untitled/Pentecost, 2003
John Brokenshire (b. 1958)
Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 76.5 cm. Methodist Modern Art Collection, MCMAC: 006
Image Copyright © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. The Methodist Church Registered Charity no. 1132208
Commentary
Brokenshire says of this abstract painting that he “was keen to get a very loosely represented image of a bird in space into my painting. But I wanted a sense of a bird hovering, not on a trajectory. At the same time, I hoped to refer in some way to angels: even if very obliquely by colour alone or by suggestion. Darkness had to be the counterpoint to this.…The title Pentecost was not suggested by me, but was the highest interpretation I could hope for from any viewer.”
Commentary based on A Guide to the Methodist Art Collection.
Artist biography
Born: Lydney, Gloucestershire, 1958
Early life and education
After completing a foundation course at Waltham Forest College (1989-90), John Brokenshire studied fine art at Sheffield Hallam University (1990-95).
Life and career
After university, Brokenshire settled in Sheffield where he lives today. He has primarily painted abstract work in oil on canvas, but he says that his recent work “has been a direct response to nature” and the elements, and that he is increasingly using free-flowing water-based acrylic paints on canvas and paper. He takes inspiration from coastal sites and moors in Cornwall. Recent sketching trips to Penwith moors near St Ives and St Just have led to a series of responsive works exhibited at Penwith Gallery, St Ives (2025). He sees artists’ efforts to reference the rock formations and the play of ocean and light as “simultaneously a homage to that actual existential zone and expressions of universal themes.” This relationship between nature and spirituality and imagination is captured in Untitled-Pentecost (2003) in the Methodist Modern Art Collection. His own spiritual journey has included his exploration of spirituality in his paintings and his concern about the spiritual needs of his young children and this led him gradually back to the Church.
Exhibitions and collections
Brokenshire’s group exhibitions include: Northern Graduates in the Royal College of Art, London (1995) and A Sense of Scale at the Curwen Gallery, London (1996).
He has held solo shows at the Curwen Gallery, London from 1995, the New Academy Gallery, London from 1997 and the Cupola Gallery, Sheffield from 2005. He won an Arts Council award for his exhibition Looking for You at Sheffield Cathedral in 2006 and most recently has had an exhibition at Penwith Gallery, St Ives, inspired by the Penwith Moors.
His work is held in several collections including: Middlesex Hospital; BP International Ltd, London; and the Computer Science Corporation, Farnborough.
Sources and further reading
Artist’s website: johnbrokenshire.co.uk
David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945: Volume 1 A to L, Vol. 1 of 2 volumes, (Bristol: Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006), p. 197.
Seeing the Spiritual: A Guide to the Methodist Modern Art Collection, (Oxford: Methodist Modern Art Collection, 2018), p. 24-25.