A French monk once observed that it was in about the third year after AD 1000 (the supposed year of Armageddon) that a huge resurgence in devotion occurred; a consequence of which was the construction of an enormous number of cathedrals and churches. This in turn saw the dawning of the Gothic age. One of the most fundamental developments in the theological and architectural language at this time was in the use of stained glass. The belief was that light passing through the glass had a transfigural effect for the people on which it fell.

 

Light is described as the intangible phenomenon by which the world is made visible and throughout history it has been symbolically equated with virtue, revelation

and beauty and has been a focal point for the philosophies and religions of mankind. Contemporary society has been left an enormous legacy of cathedrals and churches in which the iconographic symbolism as previously observed has all but disappeared. This body of work explores the movement from the medieval ideologies to the peculiar secularisation of these sacred spaces.