GENESIS TO REVELATION

FOREWORD

I am a Christian businessman and have been involved with investments and property development activities for over thirty years.

In July 2005, I commenced a project in the heart of Melbourne's' CBD which is the second largest city in Australia. It now has a population of 4.5 million and known to may as a growing metropolis blending all forms of multiculturalism and design for over 200 years.

The project was the purchase and refurbishment of an older building that was to become a modern serviced office complex containing 120 offices over its 12 levels. The offices were to be furnished and leased out on short and medium term leases to individuals and small businesses.

Early in the project, I became convinced of the need for the whole building to be a silent but strong spiritual monument to God, by whose grace I had been repeatedly blessed in my business. It would somehow be in the furnishings or in the extra's that may be added.

Some years earlier I had met Bill Sayers when he arrived in Melbourne and began attending the Bayside Church. We became the firmest of friends through our participation in one of the small groups of church men that met regularly to discuss all manner of subjects both personal and business within the context of our faith.

When Bill arrived in Melbourne, he was accompanied by Rina, his wife of some 20 years. We feebly attempted to share to share his pain as he nursed his beloved Rina through an agonizing four years through a terminal illness. During that time I became aware of the heart within this man, Bill Sayers, through his faith and utter devotion and love for his wife that drove him through those four years.

Bill and Rina were together for a total of 25 years and had virtually shared every hour of these 25 years in business, leisure and rest. Theirs was a love story for the ages, a total and devoting independence on one another. In the latter stages of Rina's illness, with prophetic insight and a selflessness that was her hallmark, Rina encouraged Bill to understand and believe that as he stood alone during the time ahead, that it was a time of great personal development for him. Little could she have imagined where that path would take him after her passing.

Until then, Bill had experienced only a fleeting association with art. Though his business background was in the financial services sector, he is a talented man in many facets. As for art, he had once worked as a tradesman assisting acquaintance to construct the artists sculpted works.

He could have also been described as a philistine when it came to modern technology and computers. But over the ensuing few years, though grieving for his wife and in solitude, the latent talent of the gifted artist that had lain dormant in him all these years emerged.

It defies description that such a talent could have been asleep all these years and for so long. But in timing and in a manner that could have only been ordained in a realm not of this world and emerged it did. It gushed forth with inspiration that transformed the dread and fear of the computer and its workings into a palette that was to be a tool that danced on the hands of the artist who now held it.

The artworks that Bill explored so married with his faith that I was immediately prompted to commission him to fulfil my conviction for the spiritual monument to God that had become one of the driving aspirations for my redevelopment project. It was what most would consider, "Arts Mission Impossible", to create a series of artworks numbering about 200 that told the story of the bible from "Genesis to Revelation". It was my intention to fill the refurbished building with a series of artworks by Bill Sayers that brought the word of God, silently but visibly into every office, foyer and on every level throughout the structure.

It was to be to the casual observer, a work of modern art that would be attractive and pleasing to the eye. That much we knew but, the subject itself held the promise of so much more. Vibrant and exhilarating colours, images that would become the hallmark of Bill Sayers that he was the tool to bring the story to life using this structure as his canvas.

Though aware that the task was daunting, I was convinced that Bill's inspiration through his growing intimacy with the divine could deliver the impossible. The work you see before you is testimony to just how extraordinarily successful has been the result. Simply, it is stupendous, a personal magnum opus and a testimony to the gifted artist who emerged out of personal tragedy, then by faith embarked on a journey that was arts mission impossible and arrived at its destination on glory.

During small exhibitions of selected artworks, I have stood and watched as viewers who had no idea of the background to the art or of the artist, stood before it and wept silently for no explicable reason. Mission impossible had indeed been completed. However, the journey had not. In the manner and for the reasons that only the divine can fathom, the redevelopment project for which the works were intended was disposed before completion. Thus the artwork, though completed as commissioned, never realized its purpose for which it was to be birthed within its supposed structure.

But the divine may have a greater purpose for it than our vision of its standing sentinel, in the confines of a single building in downtown Melbourne. Since the demise of the refurbishment project, greater opportunities have arisen. One is this book you see before you. It carries images of the completed artworks in this singular volume. Other opportunities with greater scope are also on the horizon, though the logistics are daunting, static and travelling displays of full scale artworks beckon. Further, the subject matter is one that asks not how we can find 200, 2000 or indeed a lifetime of images.

It is truly a journey that continues.

For now, I pray that those of you who share this portion of it will be inspired and touched by what you see and experience as I have, some of the few privileged that these artworks may find themselves in selected galleries on display.

For me, I am left with a sense of being profoundly privileged to have in some small way shared the journey from the outset.

JAK TOLJ
Director, Property Development.