Mourning

This month we have invited Artist and Axis Trustee Holly Slingsby to curate a selection of Axis Members' work using the Axis Gallery. Featuring: Olivia Hicks, Carrie Stanley, Anna Dumitriu, Helen Acklam, Jason Rouse, Angela Davies, Natalia Millman, Peter Driver, and Sam Pickett.

Mourning, although an intensely subjective experience, is ultimately a universal one that we will all eventually and unavoidably undergo. Typically, it might be caused by a personal bereavement - or more elusively, an unfulfilled hope. Yet in our context of international conflicts, pandemics and environmental devastation, we also experience ongoing, shared lamentation for the relentless tragedies we see in the news, and a sense of loss for continuing ecological breakdown. Grief can take many shapes and paths.

As artists we are fortunate to have creative tools to respond in the face of these situations. In the act of artmaking, we can examine our own personal suffering and provide a forum for others to reflect. We can take something intangible and give it material presence. This might take the form of images, objects, ritual invitations or immersive installations. Through these offerings we can generate solidarity, transforming mourning from an isolated solitary process to a collective and interconnected one.

Throughout the history of art, a multitude of practitioners have worked in this rich and vital seam, whether depicting mythical and religious episodes of grief (archetypally, the scene of the Pieta) or personal tragedy. Pontormo, Goya, Kollwitz, Kahlo, Nash, Warhol and countless others have trodden this path ahead of us, and yet there is always more to say. The works here are a small sample of the wealth of contemporary artistic practice in this area. They don't necessarily focus on the figure of the bereaved, or the person lost, but allude rather to the condition of mourning itself.

About Holly Slingsby:

Holly Slingsby works in performance, video and painting. Her practice explores belief, and examines representations of women and their implications. Her visual language reflects a fascination with iconography, drawing on biblical imagery, mythologies, and contemporary culture. Much of her recent work seeks to convey lived experience of infertility.

Slingsby's work has been screened, performed and exhibited at Chapter, Cardiff; Tate St Ives; Turner Contemporary; CCC Barcelona; LABS Bologna; Matt's Gallery; Spike Island; Modern Art Oxford; Freud Museum, London; DKUK, London; Art Licks Weekend; ICA, London; and the Barbican. In 2023 she was joint winner of the Exeter Contemporary Open.