Ian Knowles

Ian Knowles is a Catholic icon painter born in England in 1962. He spent over a decade living among Christians in the Holy Land, where he founded the Bethlehem Icon School in 2010 at the Emmanuel Greek Catholic Monastery in Bethlehem and ran the Bethlehem Icon Centre from 2011 to 2019 which he also founded with the Tantur Ecumenical Centre in Jerusalem. Ian is an Oxford University theology graduate with a Diploma in Pastoral Theology from Heythrop College, London. He has been a professional iconographer since 2007 and now lives in the Italian Alps where he has his studio, and teaches icon painting mainly online through the Arbor Vitae Icon Academy. His work emphasises the spiritual and contemplative nature of icon painting, viewing it as a living art rooted in Christian theology and liturgy. He has a number of notable icons commissioned from cathedrals, churches and communities around the world and is currently developing a new style of icon inspired by English medieval artists such as Matthew Paris. You can find examples of his work under the title Arbor Vitae Iconography.