EACH artwork is a prayer, Olga Bakhtina says as she shows off the two dozen paintings and sketches she is exhibiting in the Cathedral Precinct all weekend long as part of St Stephen’s Cathedral 150th anniversary celebrations.
She steers me towards her image of St Michael the Archangel and the little sketch beside of St George and the Dragon.
She painted St Michael this year while praying for peace in the conflict in Ukraine.
Across the hall is an image from of Abraham welcoming the three angels before he has to bargain with God to save the people of Sodom.
She says she understands how Abraham feels, thinking about her Russian heritage and the fighting in Ukraine.
An image of Madonna with Child nearby catches my eye.
The influences from Orthodox iconography is clear.
She painted all the images over the last six years and each recounts a story from the Old and New Testaments.
The stories of the Bible, she says, are recurring in the world today.
“I feel like human nature didn’t really change since the Biblical times,” she says.
“We still have pretty much what was happening back then… it is what is happening now.”
This was true too, she says, of the many virtues espoused in the Bible – “love, hope, devotion and sacrifice”.
When Mrs Bakhtina paints, she thinks about what is happening in the world and speaks to God through her brush.
“It’s my way of praying,” she said.
“(I am) just wishing for peace and for love and for the world to come back to its senses.”
Mrs Bakhtina does not just paint Christian art, but it did have a special place in her heart.
All her art, she says, is an investigation into how she should deal with the world, how to understand how things work, her relationship to her world and her own relationships with people.
The artworks are on display in the Hanly Room from 10am today and across the weekend.
Mrs Bakhtina has previously been the subject of the Art Aficionado series discussion with Archbishop Mark back in 2022.
