By Tom Barton

1 Jul, 2002

Page 8

AN ARTISTIC priest's Biblical sculptures will go on display in St Asaph Cathedral as part of this year's North Wales International Music festival.

The sculptures will include Father Rory Geoghegan's tribute to the victims of September 11, entitled 'Dead Christ held by Mother', as well as a series based around the theme of 'Mother and Child', depicting Mary holding the baby Jesus.

His works will go on show in September, in the Translator's Chapel in St Asaph Cathedral as part of the festival's Fringe. It is only the second time that the festival has staged Fringe events, and promises to build on last year's success.

Father Geoghegan, 71, has spent more than 50 years in the cloth, and trained as an artist during the 1960s. He has always juggled his clerical duties with his love of art ever since, having had roles as varied as teaching art in South West England and even spending some time as a chaplain to Shell staff in the Shetland islands.

The Jesuit priest has lived in the St Beuno's College retreat in Tremeirchon, near St Asaph, since 1999, and it is only since moving there that his art has been able to flourish.

'My superiors see it as very much part of ministry,' he said. 'If you look at the amount of art that has been produced in the name of belief - both in the East and in Christian parts of the world - I think you can see this.'

The works that will go on display, their style influenced by artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, are - despite appearances - not cast in bronze. The priest instead builds up the sculptures from wire mesh and decorator's plaster, before giving them a bronze-style finish.

'I would like to get them cast in bronze, but at the moment I do not have the funds available,' he says.

* Father Geoghegan's sculptures can be seen in St Asaph Cathedral from September 2. They will be on display in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford from July 4.