Must it be religion or shopping?

At a time when churches are closing, many of them re-opening as shops and Sunday has become one of the busiest shopping days has shopping become the new religion.

The three young girl dolls, dressed in the clothing of grown women, ('Babe Belle 1'??????) seem goggle eyed as they loook down on the models showing their clothes to best effect. The conflict is emphasised in the soaring, colonaded and glass emporium setting.

What can be achieved by clothing? In 'Shopping ... the new Religion' a world of women totally focussed on fashion soars from a cathedral-shaped ruin to a vast castle in the sky. Destroying the past and 'building castles in the sky'?

'Collage from Life Study', set in a classical building, is drawing on Leonardo da Vinci's IS THIS CORRECT ??? anatomical studies. Early art has a salutary message for to-day in the way it shows how the beauty and ingenuity SPELLING of the human body can be so effectively celebrated and elevated.

"We know it's ridiculous, but we want it anyway. Bespoke Mulberry Bayswater gold bag, £700." The central character in 'Shopping, the New Religion 1' proclsims as she rushes from a traditional church setting to show her new purchases. "There is something indescribably lovely about gold bags - and this is the ultimate example. So desirable we can hardly breathe."

In 'Shopping - the New Religion 11' (no. __) it is uncanny how acceptably soaring angels have become fashion models. These come down in a great V shape to a knot of religious images. Underneath an arc of words says 'It's not your shoes / It's not your car / It's not your tie /It's your watch that says / most about who you are' and at congregation/ground floor level well dressed young people gaze and display.

Shopping for a new dress seems to integrate very naturally with the soaring religious stained glass images in 'Shopping - the New Religion 111'. This is achieved through the rich colours symmetry of cloth and glass.

'Babe Belle 11' might be the scene after a terrible battle. In the background cathedrals and other great buildings crumbling. In the foreground a surrealistic SPELLING child-like scene of disconnected angel, model, warrior and fairy.

In 'Tree' or 'Entwined Trees' is Crawford pointing to nature as a touchstone and a source of the greatest wonder?

In Killarney the extensive refurbishment of the Cathedral, a vibrant mission and the opening of Marks and Spencers SPELLING?? would seem to suggest that religion and shopping can co-exist.

- Frank Lewis