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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jul/22/ray-exworth-sculptures-jem-southam-sheds>
"Ray Exworth spent six decades creating one of Britain’s most extraordinary
bodies of sculpture – and almost nobody has seen it. Hidden inside a labyrinth
of sheds on a remote Cornish smallholding, his vast, obsessive constructions
have remained locked away from the world, visited only by a fortunate few. Even
his wife Susie, 92, was largely kept out. “I could not visit without an
invitation!” she recalls.
Exworth, who died in 2015 aged 84, had just one major exhibition in his
lifetime, at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1975. Since then, the man who might
belong among Britain’s most notable artists has disappeared almost entirely.
His works – sprawling, intricate and wildly ambitious, assembled from an array
of salvaged materials – have remained exactly where he left them: filling seven
studio sheds and a scattering of shipping containers, unseen.
A new book by photographer Jem Southam,
Ray’s Sheds, provides unprecedented
access to Exworth’s stunning work for the first time. Southam believes only 20
people have seen inside Ray’s sheds. His book is not only a detailed document
of a exceptional art practice that may never otherwise see the light of day,
but an intriguing inquiry into what it means to be an artist – and what the
purpose of art is – when it is never publicly seen."
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
