This week's featured Annunciation scene is an acrylic on wood panel painting by British Artist Frank Humphrey Allen. Discovering Allen's work at an exhibition in a resort hotel on the island of Cyprus over ten years ago inspired me to look for more pieces on sacred themes by other unknown contemporary art-makers, helping to lay the foundation for the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. This dream landscape in the style of Swiss Modernist Paul Klee is rich in symbolic meanings. Allen shows the Virgin Mary encountering the Angel Gabriel within a walled garden, an image of her virginity popular in medieval sacred art, taken from Song of Solomon 4:12 (KJV): “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse.” The exotic flora and fauna of the setting bring to mind the Garden of Eden and Mary’s role as the new Eve, who will right the wrong committed by the first humans and open the way to redemption by her obedience to God’s will. (John Kohan)