Why can't I go to Rome?

Another yet failed proposal was my application for the Abbey Painting Scholarship in Rome. Maybe I don't fit the criteria for Rome, perhaps they think my paintings are shit, do I not know the right people? or it could be that my proposal read as ridiculous. Like many others I received a flimsy photocopied piece of paper sealed in my own self addressed envelope. It read something like the usual bollocks - unfortunately on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful due to the high volume and high quality and all that high crap, basically you are rubbish! Well I am not rubbish I am brilliant! So at least give me the decency of writing the rejection on nice paper; i mean I did pay £25.00! of which I do not have! you said around 90 applicants got rejected that is 90 sheets of nice paper at a cost of about £4.00 when they paid a total of £2'250 - you still get £2'246!
Anyway take a look at my proposal and see if I deserved a rejection on a decent piece of paper.

Abbey Scholorship in Painting Rome Rejected Proposal

Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads where he handed over his guitar; the devil tuned his guitar, played a few licks and returned it to Johnson. In exchange for his soul Johnson became one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

In the movie There Will Be Blood, Daniel Plainview needs to get an oil pipe through someone’s land. It is explained by the landowner that this can only happen on the condition Plainview surrenders to the local church, where he suffers a humiliating baptism by the bizarre preacher Eli Sunday. This secures his final Hurdle of obtaining an ocean full of oil thus reaping riches beyond his wildest dreams.

As a child I remember my father who lived away asking my protestant mother to have me baptised and send me to catholic school. These requests fell on deaf ears and I went through Church of England school and I never received a christening. Until recently this never seemed a priority.

10 year after my fathers passing and in light of this project I wish to fulfil my late father’s wishes. It is on this Rome Scholarship that I wish to become baptised and build a body of painting in response to this enlightenment. My baptism in Rome will empower my work in ways

I cannot yet foresee. Through partaking in this ritualistic experience alongside the most astonishing religious art anywhere in the world - I will be sure to undertake an incredible body of work.

My plans for Rome are to utterly immerse myself in the city and its practices. I am eager to be hypnotised by the scent of frankincense and invigorated by the sound of church bells. Here I will learn the language, comb the archives and walk the streets absorbing the historic, religious and artistic power of the eternal city.  

Caravaggio transcended all religious painting that went before him. He used the streets, real people and flesh to realise his astounding work. 400 years on and as a promising painter I am interested where religious painting can go now? Can one still produce masterpieces in the light of religion? With dwindling church numbers can this type of painting still be relevant? Or should it be left to the outsider artist (Howard Finster, Reverend Jesse Howard)? The Abbey Awards Scholarship is the perfect opportunity for me to ask these questions and investigate in depth the relevance of religious painting beyond 2011.

Embarking on this exploration I hope to open up new passages of painting, threading my own sensibility, outsider art with that of the masters. The studio and financial freedom will enable me to commit to this project on a most intense level. It is this concentrated 9 months that will conclude my desire to make great painting.