Emily Young – We Are Stone’s Children

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The Fine Art Society is pleased to announce a major exhibition of new
sculpture by Britain’s pre-eminent stone carver, Emily Young (FRBS). The show
will be staged in the cloister of the Madonna dell’Orto church in Venice over
the summer of 2013 to coincide with the 55th Venice Biennale.
Following a series of critically-acclaimed exhibitions and installations throughout
the UK, this will be the first major European show for the artist. It is fitting that
the exhibition should not only be mounted in Italy where Young lives and works,
but also that it is part of the Venice Biennale’s lively contemporary art platform, providing a fascinating opportunity to
consider her practice amongst the mass of international art.
Young is a leading figure in the field of stone carving and her work echoes a sculpting tradition that looks back to
humankind’s earliest relationship with stone. She fuses this sense of tradition with a distinctly contemporary approach,
creating a strong paradox between the age-old principles of carving and a progressive, widely informed attitude to form and
composition.
A major preoccupation of Young’s practice is the interconnected and dependent nature of human existence. We are Stone’s
Children takes as its genesis the incomprehensibly long history of the Earth’s main component; stone. The site-specific
presentation of her work embraces the unique heritage and serenity of the Madonna dell’Orto cloister. The mid-fourteenth
century church is a jewel in a city of stone, and for Young the building is testament to the enduring quality of her chosen
material. Concrete, metal and new materials corrode and decay, and are vulnerable to time in a way that stone is not.
Young observes: “Just under fourteen billion years ago, our universe was created; radiant energy was hurled out from a single
point, creating space and time, a vastness of gas, dust and matter. Our planet is made of the same materials, manifesting
Nature’s unending metamorphosis of energy and matter into new forms. We, every one of us, past and present, are the
children of old stone; stone is the solid history of the creation of the Earth, and we carry the history of the Earth in our bones,
brains and hearts. Stone is our earthly ancestor, and we are its children”.
Emily Young’s work is in public and private collections across the globe including The Imperial War Museum and St Paul’s
Churchyard, London, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Salisbury Cathedral and La Defense, Paris. In 2012 her work
was exhibited at The Paul J. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
We Are Stone’s Children will transfer to The Fine Art Society’s London galleries in the autumn and will be on view from 6-26
September 2013.