| WITTILY titled, “Bald Statements” is an exhibition of sculptures by Jean Parker which explore her experience of breast cancer. It is a suitably challenging subject for a Lenten exhibition, but one that, as its subtitle “Good Grief” suggests, also ultimately strikes a hopeful note.
Each of the eight carved alabaster heads is emblematic of a different stage in the grieving process. Strategically sited, the sculptures lead visitors around the luminous interior of Bath Abbey, past walls and floors densely packed with memorials — irrefutable reminders of the inevitability of bereavement, illness, and suffering.
Denial is the first head to be encountered, The smooth, highly polished surface of the face is literally featureless, presenting an impenetrable mask of self-protection. Clamped in a wooden vice, Denial has a full, sensually textured head of hair.
Denial gives way to Disbelief, a stage described by Jean Parker as the most painful stage of loss. To emphasise the point, a vicious hole pierces this face, the O it forms recalling Munch’s The Scream. In a neat, visual reversal, Disbelief’s face has a choppy surface, contrasting with the smooth baldness of the chemotherapy patient. The artist moves into more straightforwardly representational mode with Questioning, whose head-tilted, brow-furrowed attitude asks “Why me?”
Anger is the most visceral of all eight sculptures, and here the artist deploys texture to huge effect to convey this powerful, corrosive emotion.
The surface of this raging, howling face is crudely lacerated, as if carved using a chainsaw, and the caramel-coloured alabaster is marbled like raw meat. Sunken-eyed Depression follows, but the whiteness of the alabaster used signals a turning point: it is a stage where, according to the sculptor, others are more inclined to reach out to help the desolate sufferer.
In the final three sculptures, the artist marshalls the tactile and chromatic qualities of alabaster: the candid face of Acceptance is egg-smooth, while the dark veining running through Healing suggests the memory of recent pain. Peace is a horizontal figure, shown in blissful repose and carved with an intricately ridged, ammonite-like surface. It is a serene image, reminiscent of a Romanesque carving, but actually depicts the artist lying on a bench, enjoying a bit of sun.
A DVD presentation offers a fuller exposition of the sculptures, and their evolution from terracotta maquettes to the finished alabaster works. These tiny heads express the artist’s raw, unmediated response to her cancer, and bronze casts of them are displayed near by.
The clarity and humanity with which the artist discusses her experience and her work confirms her as a compassionate companion on this journey through grief, and reaffirms, too, the unique ability of art to make sense of suffering.
“Bald Statements” is at Bath Abbey until 25 March.
www.bathabbey.org
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