LONDON.- This Easter Sunday (24th April 2011) Christ’s College Chapel in Cambridge University, unveiled a new altar reredos by the current Leverhulme Artist in Residence Tom de Freston. The unveiling took place during a special service of the Anglican Choral Evensong and is the fruition of an exciting collaboration.

Tom de Freston, who also previously held the Levy Plumb Visual Arts Residency at Christ’s College has been working on the paintings for two years and is delighted to be bringing the installation to the Chapel.

He said: “The two paintings are intended to offer a binary narrative, one of rise and fall. They are made with the very particular demands of the Chapel in mind, and will hopefully provide a visual and spiritual fulcrum to the space”.

The Revd Christopher Woods, College Chaplain said: “In this Chapel, we have had the great Caro sculpture of ‘The Deposition’ in our midst for ten years. Now, in 2011 we have also have the de Freston altarpiece: new reflection for our time on the human reality of falling to the depths of despair, yet rising again abundantly to life and hope again.”

Tom is currently working on an exciting British Shakespeare Association Commission, tiled Works Inspired by Shakespeare Plays, this will first be shown in September at the BSA Conference, alongside a body of poems by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.