Epiphany Art
John Armstrong
John Armstrong is a Hove-based oil painter and one of Britain's most distinguished church artists, with major commissions in churches across the UK and a painting in the Royal Collection at Highgrove.
Mediums: Oil paint · Collage · Pen and wash
Themes: The Gospels · Crucifixion · Sacred landscape · The Kingdom of Heaven
Location: Hove, Sussex, UK
Available for all types of commissions
About John
John Armstrong NDD ATC was born in 1937 and trained as a painter and teacher at art schools in Swindon, Walthamstow and Brighton. He has taught art and crafts in schools, worked in museums in Hove and Lewes, and at the exhibitions unit of the University of Brighton Gallery.
His church commissions are among the most significant by any living British artist. They include the Great Altar Crucifix at St Peter's Parish Church, Brighton; the Great Hanging Crucifix at St Boniface, Tooting, London; a cycle of twenty paintings at St George's, Hove; an eight-figure Reredos at St Mary Help of Christians, Bath; and a three-figure Altarpiece at St John the Evangelist, Horsham, West Sussex.
A painting, Hove Beach, was commissioned as Hove's wedding present to King Charles III and is now in the Royal Collection at Highgrove. John is a prize winner of Laing competitions at the Mall Galleries, London (1982 and 2000), and his work is held in private collections in Belgium, Singapore and Australia. Works are also held in the Hove Museum of Art, East Sussex County Council and the Nuffield Foundation.
John has also contributed illustrations to two ‘How to Paint’ books by Gerald Woods and has written articles for national design magazines. He is married to fellow Epiphany Art member Helen Armstrong.
In their own words
"Through his work, the Christian painter is responsible, more than ever, for expressing the way, the truth and the life. We must use earthly images and signs as pointers to higher levels of understanding — to an inner joy and a vision of love. It is our task to illustrate, interpret and share the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven by using themes drawn from the Bible, the Liturgy and everyday life.
"At the same time, we are one with the creator through the act of painting. We may often fail to live up to this ideal, but I think it will be the Christian painter's concern to work quietly and faithfully and to return to a direction in painting where the spiritual meaning will again be the point of departure."
Faith and the creative act
For John Armstrong, the gospels aren't just a spiritual commitment — they're the animating principle of his artistic life. His work as a church artist is grounded in the conviction that painting has a vocation: to make present the way, the truth and the life through earthly images and signs. From large-scale crucifixes to intimate oil panels, every work is an act of theological attention — an attempt to point, in paint, toward something beyond the visible
Selected works
