Julian Stair: Art, Death and the Afterlife

About

Stair’s new exhibition personalises the deceased with a selection of ‘embodied’ pots, which contain their ashes within the clay. Stair demonstrates how artistic practice can both mediate loss and celebrate life. Through his work, he invokes the physical and spiritual presence of the deceased.

Around twenty new artworks by the artist, including monumental figural forms, will invite the viewer to meditate on the relationship between the clay vessel and the human body. They will be presented alongside objects from the Sainsbury Centre Collection, selected by the artist to communicate the universality of death as aesthetic inspiration and philosophical inquiry. By drawing together ancient Cycladic marble figures, anthropomorphic vessels from Ecuador, Nigeria and Japan, and twentieth-century drawings by Alberto Giacometti, Stair creates a poetic and moving meditation on the human condition. Positive and uplifting, Stair’s exhibition explores humanity’s reliance on art as a means to transcend the unknown.

In connection with the exhibition, Sainsbury Centre and Julian Stair are facilitating forums which bring together professionals working in end-of-life care with members of the community in a series of Death cafés and Grief cafés.

Stair’s artistic practice is intensely personal. In recent years, the artist has made cinerary jars and memorial-based commissions for individuals. Reliquary for a Common Man (2012) was created in memory of Stair’s uncle-in-law, Les Cox, and displayed in the exhibition Quietus. Working closely with Cox’s bereaved family, Stair eulogised Cox’s life through text and video, and commemorated his death by incorporating his ashes into the clay body of an urn.

Julian Stair: Art, Death and the Afterlife is supported by an Arts Council England Project Grant.