Exhibitions2012The End

Jacob’s Island Gallery is pleased to present The End, a group exhibition that alludes to the tradition of memento mori and offers a contemporary interpretation. As the title suggests, all works in the exhibition literally or metaphorically reference mortality and the brevity and fragility of human life.

Artists have drawn upon symbolic motifs associated with all things finite since antiquity. The artists presented in The End continue this tradition with fresh eyes, juxtaposing symbols extracted from the history of art with contemporary still lifes and other narrated scenarios. They address and contextualise these issues, bringing them into the 21st century whilst harking back to the notions of poetically succinct meditations on longed for pasts and inevitable futures.

By beginning at the end, the death's head is the most prevalent symbol, however other objects convey less literal areas of investigation, extending into depictions of obituaries, eulogies, turned fruit, last suppers, nature morte, funerary art and the close associate of memento mori, vanitas still life. In addition to the symbols of mortality these include other objects whose connotations remind us explicitly of the vanity (in the sense of worthlessness) of worldly pleasures and goods. These depictions encourage us to ponder our material possessions in relation to the fact that when deceased they will be rendered worthless and unnecessary.

An undercurrent of humour noir runs throughout, which may provoke an uneasy mixture of laughter, discomfort and contemplation.

Mercedes Baliarda, Peter Callesen, Darren Coffield, Mat Collishaw, Kevin Francis Gray, Neil Hamon, James Hopkins, John Isaacs, Hugh Mendes, John Stark, Gavin Turk, Neil Zakiewicz