Photo and video credit Alun Callender
Renowned for creating extraordinary grand scale formed spaces in willow, this must-see selling exhibition also provides an opportunity to experience Bacon’s intimate small sculptures as well as an exciting site-specific installation, hand crafted into the St James’s space, with which visitors can interact.
In this first solo exhibition of Bacon’s work in London, the tactile works have weight, presence and a strange quality as if they have always existed. Using a language of form that feels familiar to the natural world. The exhibition is transporting in its human scale and a sensory delight in this historic interior setting. Upon entering the space you firstly become aware of the fragrance of the willow and thatch. We are reminded that nature can still surprise us.
Bacon’s latest artworks often speak of the ‘bravery’ of a seed punching through the frozen earth into the unknown. Her open-air sculptures frequently become habitats for wildlife and her use of natural materials means that sustainability and climate resilience is woven into the sculptures she creates. The titles of her work such as ‘Reverie’ reference the emotional and mental absorption she experiences when working with her hands.
Bacon’s installations have appeared across the UK including Somerset House, Sudeley Castle (for Sotheby’s), The Holburne Museum and Blackwell – The Arts and Crafts House. In France, Bacon’s public projects transformed the Abbaye de Maubuisson outside Paris in 2022 and Château-Gaillard in 2023. Bacon’s commission for Chatsworth in 2020 is her largest to date. Created from 100 tons of local stone and designed to appear as if seeping from the ground and flowing down a woodland slope, ‘Natural Course’ is the monumental sculptural centrepiece of Chatsworth’s biggest garden transformation for nearly 200 years.
The Denver Art Museum, in Denver Colorado, will host Bacon’s first US exhibit in Summer 2024.
