About Conestoga Icons
The icons painted at the Conestoga Iconographic Studio offer a simplicity and stillness in their vision of Jesus Christ and his saints. Each is created by master iconographer Symeon van Donkelaar, and created from a unique set of skills and of months of hard work. Through the wonder-filled gravitas of his style, Symeon’s work brings the presence of Jesus Christ and his saints—those men and women fully alive in the Spirit—into the lives of those seeking to commune with them. Today, the studio’s icons can be found in homes, chapels, and churches across the US and Canada, and with printed icons blessing countless homes around the whole world.
To learn more about commissioning an icon for your own church or home, please contact the studio using the Commission Request Form on this website.
Latest Posts
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Michael the Archangel
Among the created beings of the cosmos, the archangel Michael is one of the most profound in the revelation of the Scriptures and holy tradition. His titles are very numerous and varied—he is called Holy, Prince, and Commander—and each of these reminds us of an important role that Michael can play in our lives and …
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The Nativity Icon: The Cave
At the centre of the Nativity icon—and, in fact, an image of Christmas complete in itself—is the stable cave. Within its dark outline, the wonder of the incarnate Christ dwells, along with his mother and a pair of animals. I think it’s fair to say the Nativity icon is especially beautiful within the iconographic canon, …
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The Nativity Icon: An Introduction
For the past five or six years, I’ve been working on the icon of Christ’s Nativity. Unlike a portrait icon of a saint—which I can usually design and sketch with a week spent learning, praying, and sketching—a festival icon is far more complicated in both its composition and theology, so the time spent designing any …
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Saints Zenaida and Philonella
Sts. Zenaida and PhilonellaThe Charitable Physicians— October 11th — The story of Zenaida and Philonella is not well known in the Catholic Church, but it really should be. These two early Christian saints were bright, intelligent women who are the first canonized medical doctors for their work as physicians in the church. Through them we …
Recent Announcements
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2026 Icon Painting Retreat Announced
I’m excited to share that the monks at the Mount Carmel Spirituality Centre outside Edmonton in Alberta have invited me to offer an icon painting workshop and retreat at their new facility. It’s a perfect setting where we can paint together, surrounded by the life of prayer and service happening at Mt. Carmel, inspired by …
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Pondering The Nativity of Christ
Place: Mount Carmel Spirituality Centre, 1225 Township Rd 535, Parkland Village, AB (West of Edmonton and north of Stony Plain)/ Time: 11 am Talk (following the community’s 10 am Mass) In preparation for the celebration of the Christmas Feast in 2024, the friars of the Mt. Carmel Spirituality Centre and Symeon van Donkelaar invite you …
Kind Words
His Icons lead one into a renewed Spirit of reverence and celebration.
It is my honor and my privilege to offer this testimonial of Symeon van Donkelaar’s Iconography. His style is elegant and simple and leads one to an experience of effulgence. His use of natural coloring is lustrous and gratifying. Following the traditional cannons of Iconography, he is true to the ancient traditions while offering new and notable interpretations. His Icons lead one into a renewed Spirit of reverence and celebration.
Symeon’s artwork calls us to a more profound regard for our fragile world.
The Incarnation calls us to a deep regard for all creatures, the beauty of flora and fauna, indeed, the earth under our feet. The earth we walk on is a reliquary and the minerals and colours of each particular place a sacred treasure. Symeon’s artwork, drawing as it does on the local palette of the land, calls each of us to a more profound regard for our fragile world, and deeper attention to the Holy Spirit who “is everywhere present and fillest all things”.
His icons are distinctive and beautiful …
Symeon’s philosophy, his insistence on local color, speaks to the incarnation: as God took on a specific body in a specific place, Symeon’s work is rooted in its particular location. His icons are distinctive and beautiful, at once otherworldly and folksy, both transcendent and intensely human. Grounded in time and place, these beautiful icons testify to God’s presence in our world, here and now.
I find his work fascinating …
I find his [Symeon’s] work fascinating as it is an exploration of the flatter and more stylized threads of iconography. Lines are bold and highly calligraphic. Color is frank and contrasted like a puzzle. Clothing is abstracted towards simple geometry. Rather than aiming at post-modern angst and the sense of teetering one gets from the work of Todor Mitrovic or the more illustrative tendency of Nicholas Saric, Symeon’s icons embrace a simple buoyancy.
