The black sun is a paradox. It is blacker than black, but it also shines with a dark luminescence that opens the way to the most numinous aspects of psychic life. The Black Sun, The Alchemy and Art of Darkness, Stanton Marlan
Artist Statement:
Combining collections of clay objects, charcoal drawings, soundscapes, and creative writing I create installations in response to dark spaces—such as ancient wells, Cornish fogous, and mine shafts. They invite audiences to consider experiences of loss and grief. Artefacts resembling ancient relics, are crafted from materials such as unfired clay, dust, and human ashes to evoke the inherent fragility, transience, and impermanence of life.
These underground spaces serve as metaphors for the unfathomable depths of grief and mourning. Collecting information in these environments through drawing and sound aligns me to their often haunting and poetic atmospheres. Grief, for me, is not only a personal experience but also a profound connection to something deeply beautiful on both an individual and collective level.
Recent work, Apothecary of Tears (2024) draws on ideas related to crying. Seventy six small bone like vessels have been made in white earthenware clay and fired outside in a barrel fire to create a charred and smoky effect on the surface. It is as though these lacrimatory vessels have been part of an archaeological dug uncovering some sort of historic grief. Arranged as an archive of tears the work also contains a piece of creative writing, a parallel text. This forms part of the final artwork presented as an image with facing pages as if in a book.
In the 2022 solo exhibition, Drawn from the Well, a collection of single-fired, unglazed porcelain fragments were scattered across the floor in pools of dust, forming a fallen magnetic field. This work reflects my connection to the concept of deep time and the ghostly echoes of the past embedded in materials like porcelain, which I view as a "ghost of the earth." How ghosts of the past speak in the present.
Central to the work is Timothy Morton's concept of "Hyperobjects," which suggests that we exist in a time "after the end of the world." This idea shapes my exploration of grief's strangeness and the necessity for new ways of speaking about our experiences in this context.
Symbolic and metaphorical devices are used to explore states of mourning, with a gradual shift from personal loss to a broader reflection on collective mourning. Through raw, ephemeral, and vulnerable installations, the work invites reflection on the shared human experience of loss, creating a space for communal contemplation and connection.
Lucy Willow, 2024
Academic employment
Current Senior Lecturer Fine Art Sculpture, Falmouth University (2012-)
Selected exhibitions
2024 Hospital Rooms commission, Longreach House, Perran Ward, Redruth
2023 M(otherhood), Tate St.Ives symposium
2022 Drawn from the Well, Grays Wharf Gallery, Penryn
2019 ANTIfestival, Kuopio, Finalnd
2019 SOLITUDE: Picture Room, Newlyn Art Gallery
2018 MANY AND BEAUTIFUL THINGS: Newlyn Art Gallery and the Exchange
2018 AT SEA AGAIN: Artist Led Project, Lamorna Village Hall, St.Just, Clarence House PZ
2017 TEARS OF THINGS: Exchange Gallery, Penzance
2016 INTERLUDE: Solo Exhibition, Guangzhou, China
2016 LOST FOR WORDS: project Room, Falmouth University
2015 DUST: Picture Room, Newlyn Art Gallery
2014 UNSETTLED: ENYS HOUSE
2014 FALLEN: KESTLE BARTON, solo show
2013 PRIMORDIAL DARKNESS: Picture Room, Newlyn Art Gallery
2013 DARK ROOMS: The Cast Institute, Helston
2011 GHOSTS OF GONE BIRDS: Liverpool School of Art
2011 ABUNDANCE: Kestle Barton, Cornwall
2009 GLORIA: Shoreditch, London
2009 WASTELANDS: Newlyn Art Gallery
2009 MEMENTO MORI, Solo Exhibition, Millennium, St.Ives
2007 REVOLVER: PZ Gallery
2007 Canary in the attic: solo show, Salt Gallery, Hayle
2007 ART NOW: Tate St.Ives
2006 Twisted: Here Gallery, Bristol
2006 Art in Hotels, Brighton Fringe Festival
2006 Make it real, Whitstable, Kent
2005 Transition 6, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall
2005 Art in Romney Marsh, 2005
2004 Smithfield Abattoir, Wrestling With Angels, London
2004 Taxi Gallery, Cambridge
2002 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Artist in Residence
2016 AIP INTERNATIONAL RESIDENCY 1 MONTH, Guangzhou, China
2015 HERE ARTIST RESIDENCY Iceland 1 month residency
2013 Kestle Barton, Rural Centre for Contemporary Arts
Publications
Malady and Mortality: Illness, Disease and Death in Literary and Visual Culture
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/malady-and-mortality
Conference Papers
2022 Death and Culture 1V, York University
Paper: The Dust of Objects
2018 Remember Me The Changing Face of Memorialisation, Hull
Paper: At Sea Again, The Shifting Memorial Ground.
2013 Malady and Mortality, Falmouth University
Paper: Transience: exploring the relationship between ephemerality, mourning and loss through dust and place.