Cross E - Cathedral Faces (Misericords)

Patrick Bailly-Maitre-Grand is an experimental photographer and artist who uses analogue photography and post-processing techniques to create his stark imagery.

Bailly-Maitre-Grand was commissioned by the Sainsbury Centre to create these works for the 900th anniversary of Norwich Cathedral in 1996. This series includes 6 mosaic compositions of photographs taken in the cathedral which were displayed in the nave of the cathedral on Easter Sunday, 1996.

The mosaics are made from silver chlorobromide prints, each arranged into allusions of a cross, and they have been subject to additional toning and colouring. The Sainsbury Centre owns four of the six works, crosses C through F. The full series includes:

A – Cathedral Doors (owned by Norwich Cathedral)

B – Cathedral Graffiti (owned by Castle Museum)

C – Cathedral Inscriptions

D – Cathedral Ceiling Bosses

E – Cathedral Faces (Misericords)

F – Cathedral Tombstones (The Thomas Gooding Memorial)

Bailly-Maitre-Grand says they were made ‘in honour of the splendid cathedral’, and looking closely at the subject matter of each work the interests of Bailly-Maitre-Grand are revealed — these are not photos of the chancel, of crosses, or candles, or stained glass. Instead of areas of ritual, the mosaics highlight areas that may be easily missed or overlooked. In the original exhibition location, inscriptions on walls, faces on ceilings, tombstones, and mediaeval graffiti dominated the nave of the cathedral.

With Croix, Bailly-Maitre-Grand takes the overshadowed heritage and artistry of the cathedral and presents them as allegorical crosses, allowing graffiti, doors, and misericords to be the main characters in the cathedral. Croix presents the cathedral as a congregation of histories, drawing attention to the number and variety of hands that laid upon them over its 900 years. [1]

Jacob Millard, July 2023

[1] https://www.baillymaitregrand.com/croix-1996/#