Painting The Holy Land with Lachlan Goudie

In a vibrant Easter two-part special to mark the holiest days of the Christian calendar, artist Lachlan Goudie packs his easel to undertake a highly personal trip of a lifetime.

From an early age, Lachlan was gripped by a vivid sense of the Holy Land gleaned from the images in his illustrated children’s Bible. As he grew up, those images were supplanted by others… the great masterpieces of Leonardo and Raphael. But above all, Lachlan absorbed the Bible story through the many powerful paintings of the crucifixion by his own father, the artist Alexander Goudie.

All these artists had one thing in common: they had never been to the Holy Land. It only existed for them, and for Lachlan himself, in the imagination. Lachlan has always wondered what it might be like to visit and paint the actual sites where the Bible stories took place. In this two part series, screening on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Lachlan will explore the Holy Land for himself, sketching and painting the people and landscapes he sees there - looking afresh at its sacred sites and bustling streets, through the eyes of an artist.

Exploring and sketching the key sites of Christianity that marked both the birth of Jesus, and his death, Lachlan enters a world he has only ever experienced on a Christmas card or a gallery wall. How will the experience of working and travelling in the Holy Land make him think about his own relationship with the Bible story?

In Episode Two, to screen on Easter Monday, Lachlan traces the role of Mary through the Biblical story, with a very personal question: why is the Mother almost a by-stander in the gospels, but so well-represented in art? In the places Mary knew, Lachlan looks at her role in the story of the Resurrection and the last event of Easter, the Pentecost. In Nazareth and Bethlehem Lachlan revisits the Immaculate Conception and the birth of Christ. It’s a story he knows well, as told to him many times by his Catholic mother. Taking his easel with him, Lachlan will visit the places in the Holy Land most associated with Mary including the Tomb of the Virgin Mary and the Church of the Nativity.

Part of the BBC's Easter religious programming

Publicity contact: EK