St James Garlickhythe, one of the Square Mile’s famous Christopher Wren churches, is hosting a collection of contemporary works by sculptor and printmaker Jacob Chandler. The artist made headlines earlier this year for designing the trophies for the Invictus Spirit Awards, which recognise extraordinary contributions to the Invictus movement — supporting the recovery and achievement of wounded service personnel.
The keynote work in the exhibition is Poise and Tension — a life-size patinated steel sculpture of a human figure in a dynamic pose. Chandler’s style is abstract without compromising on personality, and the work manages to feel totally at home in a setting conceived over three centuries ago.
Chandler has toured with Poise and Tension across the UK, as it has a scale that means it can be transported and installed inside sensitive historic venues such as St James Garlickhythe, but gives a profound sense of the power of his larger monumental civic commissions. War memorials and sporting icons feature amongst his portfolio of public art.
One of the sculptor’s notable civic commissions is One Giant Leap for Humankind, the hero sculpture for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and a table bronze of the design features alongside others in the exhibition. This figure, a para-athlete sporting a running blade, is borne out of a kinship with Chandler’s own struggle with disability (Ehlers-Danlos syndrome — EDS). This connection translates into a passion for advocating through his work both for the EDS community and for disabled people more widely.
Rounding off the exhibition are two wall art depictions of characters from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Recent scholarship has revealed the play to have been based in Chandler’s home county of Shropshire, and so Chandler has explored the characters and archetypes of this play, both through sculpture and print (one of each is sampled).
Father Anthony Howe, Rector of St James Garlickhythe, said of the event, “It is a wonderful display of creativity and technical skill. It is a real achievement to capture character through contemporary abstract art, and even more impressive for it to feel at home in an historic setting.” He hopes that people from the nation’s capital will take advantage of the opportunity to see this nationally important artist’s work in the parish.
On Monday 25, there was a private view to open the exhibition, attended by members of the Fraternity of St James. This group, which is a traditional parish guild founded in 1375 and revived in 2025 to mark its 650th anniversary, supports the church and its parish. James Wenn, a member of the fraternity, remarked, “The guild is all about encouraging and celebrating the best in each other, and Jacob’s work coming to the church epitomises everything about this. Jacob’s representation and advocacy for disability through world-class art is inspirational, and I am so glad we are privileged to experience it here.”
The exhibition runs until 30 October. Admission is free. St James Garlickhythe is located on Garlick Hill (Mansion House station on the Circle and District lines).
