GARY'S SISTINE CHAPEL

After a pilgrimage to Rome in 1987, Gary Bevans could not forget the beauty of the Original Sistine Chapel Ceiling and the comparison in size to the vault above his own parish pew in the church of the English Martyrs, Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex. The urge to paint the Ceiling would not leave him - it was like a never-silent voice in his mind and Gary approached his parish priest, Father Enda Naughton, with the idea. Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, now Cardinal of England, was consulted, a single panel was presented to the parish and he was given persmission to undertake the work.  Gary didn't even scale out the ceiling. He just knew it would fit and was silently relieved when he reached the other end and it did indeed fit perfectly.  For a man who had never had an art lesson in his life, it is easy to believe that it was indeed 'God Who holds the brush' as Gary always insisted.  Blank plywood panels were screwed to the ceiling and Gary spent five years priming, outlining and painting 500 figures, head back, arms aching, directly onto the roof.  Just before his undertaking began, the Original Ceiling in Rome was cleaned.  The Original colours were revealled as bright and vibrant.  Gary ordered a £600 book illustrating this from his signwriting wages and tore it up, stuck the pages to the roof and copied the colours.  In the heat of summer and ice-cold of winter Gary painted through the night, relying on donations for materials. The Ceiling was completed in 1993 and remains today the only full sized copy in the world, with the advantage that it is 30ft nearer to the ground than the original.

THE POPES
PROPHETS

WEBS

LUNETTES (CHRIST'S ANCESTORS

PENDATIVES (HISTORY OF ISRAEL)
FULL CEILING PHOTOS
The nine central panels include the Creation of Adam, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and the Flood.
The Ceiling in its entirety can only truly be appreciated by standing beneath it in real life.
Twelve Prophets and Sybils from the Old Testament sit upon monumental thrones beneath the Central Panels of Genisis.
There are four corner scenes from the Old Testament called 'Pendatives'.

24 early Church leaders are depicted running beneath the entire Ceiling

Christ's Ancestors arch across real windows in the Original Sistine Chapel (here Gary painted the windows to fit in with the scale).

Between the mighty Prophets are Christ's forefathers.

A newly released Documentary on DVD has exclusive never-before-seen footage of the whole five and a half year journey and is narrated by the artist, now available to buy.  For more information follow the link: