Blot on the #Oxfordshire landscape?

Robert Wagener’s painting Menorah is a powerful 20th century depiction of Christ’s crucifixion set against the backdrop of Didcot Power Station, Oxfordshire. Named “the seventh-worst eyesore in Britain” by readers of Beautiful Britain magazine and a recent target of environmental activists, the Power Station has often been an object of controversy.

However, for some, and I include myself amongst their number, find a particularly strong aesthetic and power in the beauty of such monumental urban structures. Indeed as the late Peter Levi, Oxford Professor of Poetry once said “The power station at Didcot behind the crucifixion is like the most beautiful cathedral, but the geometry of distance makes it as strange as it is passionate and fresh”.

I was therefore excited to hear that a group of local Oxfordshire artists, collectively known as Alchemie are in the process of planning an art exhibition that will draw inspiration from the chimney and cooling towers that have been a dominant feature of the skyline. It is an exhibition that I am sure will prove popular both with local residents and the wider Oxfordshire community.