Bare bones are the stuff of life
by What's On NE
ARTISTS are often said to immortalise their subjects – but few have gone as far as Steven Gregory.
Gregory’s skilful fingers breathe life back into real human skulls, sourced from dealers in medical antiques, as he painstakingly embellishes them with precious stones and metals, imbuing them again with the personality they lost in death. Flesh is replaced by jet, pearls, malachite and glass beads, and rubies and diamonds nestle where facial features might once have been.
And these one-off works of art, never before seen outside of London, will be on display in at Opus Gallery in Gosforth, Newcastle, later this month.
Gregory, whose work has been exhibited alongside household names including Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon, says: “I am trying to literally immortalise what we leave behind - once we cast off our mortal coil we are very much ‘down to the bone’.
“There’s also a great deal of irony and humour in my work – it’s a direct reference to the ‘vanitas’ tradition of the Dutch masters, whose purpose was to reflect on the transient nature of life.”
Also included in the exhibition are precise skull drawings, meticulously rendered on antique insurance certificates, and works in bronze, including Till Death Do Us Part, a loveseat made from bronze casts of human bones, featuring two 18-carat gold wedding rings gracing what were once the ring fingers.
Gregory’s work is collected internationally and he has achieved significant acclaim in both Europe and the USA – his ‘Bone Stone Bronze’ show last year at New York’s Nicholas Robinson Gallery was a sell-out.
Artist Damien Hirst is also a fan – the former enfant terrible of art owns several Gregory skulls, some of which were included in ‘In The Darkest Hour There May Be Light: Works from Damien Hirst’s Murderme Collection’ at the Serpentine Gallery last year.
Culture vultures might notice a similarity between Gregory’s work and Hirst’s For The Love Of God, a platinum skull encrusted with diamonds which hit the headlines last year as the most expensive work of art ever created – it reportedly sold for £50m.
But not according to Gregory, who considers Hirst a good friend: “The works are fundamentally different – I use actual human skulls and follow the line of the bone exactly. I also give my skulls eyes, which are custom made, so the viewer interacts with them. It raises the question, who were these people?”
‘Down To The Bone’ will be unveiled at an exclusive dinner with the artist at Opus Gallery on Wednesday June 25, followed by a private view on Thursday June 26. The exhibition opens to the public on Friday June 27, and works of art are available for purchase through the gallery. Call Opus on 0191 213 0295 or visit www.opus-art.com for more details, or visit the gallery on West Avenue, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. A fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition is also available.
