Introduction by Jon Wood

One of the constant challenges facing sculptors over the centuries is how to create life and movement out of a solid material. The title of this new exhibition, Comparative Stillness, goes to the heart of this challenge, giving a clear indication of Emily Young’s own position as a sculptor and pointing to her contribution to the field of sculpture more broadly.

For Young, the crux of the matter resides not in the dynamics of figuration, but within the material itself. In her case this is stone and each stone object is selected for its material constitution, inner formation, colour and shape. Her stones vividly offer up the stories of their making, from frenetic turbulences and fusions, to slower sedimentations and crystallizations. One of her favourite stones is ‘Giallo di Siena’ sourced not far from her studio-home in Tuscany and a stone type used in this exhibition for three sculptures: Morning Light, The Touch and Turn. Her geology notes for this two-hundred-million-year-old material (written in consultation with Sem Scarramuccio in conjunction with the geology department at the Università di Siena) make fascinating reading. She writes: ‘High pressure and temperatures related to the formation of the Apennines Mountain chain, transformed an original sedimentary calcite/carbonate rock into marble. Fracturing in the rock, once exposed, allowed the formation of new calcite which filled the cracks. A presence of tiny amounts of iron oxide in between the calcite crystals gives the colouring.’

While these short lines describe the pressure and heat of the material’s original making, the stone object that exists here today is a still and calm mute witness to such beginnings. It is this that appeals to Young’s sculptural imagination, engaging with it in the here and now, millennia later, as a living and breathing artist, looking into its forms and quietly ruminating upon the life it once had. Human beings – always busy, moving, changing and ever-mutating – standing in front of such material objects have a wonderful opportunity to achieve momentary stillness and to reflect upon the shared materialities between human, stone and the universe beyond. Young uses many different types of stone, sourced from all over the world, and in this exhibition we find stones from India, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Portugal, Brazil and Mexico, as well as from Italy and England. This creates a world-wide material reach for such considerations. Many are heads, human-looking objects which, by their very nature, viewers have always been readily able to project their thoughts, emotions and dreams onto. Young’s heads invite such projections, taking us into their stony depths, while at the same time asking us quietly to think about ecological as much as emotional matters. Her stone heads are tiny portals into such reflections.

On one level, there is a quiet melancholy at stake here, as we recall those funerary epitaphs, such as ‘What you are I once was/What I am you will be,’ that can harness the imaginations of spectators with such direct, compelling power. On another, there is an uplifting acknowledgement of shared origins and material commonalities. Stone evokes change in a slow way and the stillness of this once-flowing, living material stands now, in the form of figurative sculpture, as a direct invitation to viewers to share in this inner stillness with a quiet, meditative gaze. Here, if you take up the offer, is a stony stillness distinct from our busy selves. Time given up to such stones to enjoy what Young calls ‘the mutual stillness of the moment’ might open other inner experiences up and create other ways of thinking and feeling about our existence both inside and well beyond our corporeal limits. As we know from the experience of religious statuary, such as Buddhas, there is much to be said for projecting yourself into the serenity of a still object, allowing one countenance and sensibility to inform another.

This material-sculptural outlook has fascinating ramifications for the ways Young conceives of herself as an artist working today and imagines us as viewers. She tries to take herself as an artist out of the picture as much as possible. She often carves ‘plein air,’ under the elements and in intimate contact with the sights, smells and microclimates of the environment surrounding her studio-home. Many of the stones she works with come from this region too, lending a site-sensitivity to her free carving. She talks about the breeze, the sounds of birds and those of dogs echoing across the valley, but also about the insularity provided by masks and ear protectors, carving outside on stone blocks while also being ‘inside a little cocoon of sorts.’ Signatures are not readily visible and titles operate solely as names and identifying devices (alongside catalogue numbers), rather than holding any special meanings for the actual sculptures. Dates of making are kept loose, the approximate age of the stone material preferred to the date of execution. She works across three main strands of sculptures – heads, torsos and discs – with each work continuing its own individual poetries and predicaments. There are subtle differences in carving style from work to work, but it is not possible to talk with any certainty about artistic or stylistic development. All the sculptures seem to live together in the same extended present – while simultaneously looking deep into the past and the future. They speak only of their unique material lives and, void of any irony or arty cleverness, invite us as viewers into their individual material-spatial orbits with open, inquisitive minds. One-to-one encounters are envisaged, in which viewers might have personal engagements – tête-à-têtes in which we might get to know something of ourselves a little better. Young’s works offer up invitations to more contemplative ways of seeing, and perhaps to more compassionate ones too – through a compassionate, as well as comparative, stillness.

Dr Jon Wood, May 2025

Artist’s Statement

Since I first started working with stone, some forty years ago, the big question has been, what is actually happening when a human, soft, short lived, engages with a piece of rock, millions if not billions of years old? What is the relationship? The question was answered over those first few years of working with stone: it became apparent that it was a friendship, and an apprenticeship, where the stone was my teacher.

Alongside that was the realisation that the traditional use of stone in art was a relationship where the human was the master and the stone was the servant.

And this was not acceptable to me: it became clear, as a core principle, that it had to be an alliance, a relationship of respect: it would only be an honest and beautiful way of working if I was open to its nature as a guide, for me to become its partner. A relationship based on respect for the stones origins and nature.

This soon also carried over into understanding that the Earth is not humanities servant.

So, the wild surfaces of a stone found on the hillside, a million years old or more, or found discarded in a stone yard, became my teacher. I read its nature to the best of my ability, and ask it to play. I could not work with a six-sided cut block of stone, sold as a dumb lump of matter, onto which I would wield my plan. I felt we were allies, the stone and I, with no particular plan, just watching and listening, feeling our way… it became clear that in honouring the stone, so also we can honour the created globe, the planet, our home, our creator, our mother – and thereby the work I make finds its beauty: like humans, the stones’ dignity can also be seen as unlimited.

My heart is at rest when the stone speaks with me, a human being, fully engaged in conjunction with the wild material out of which our bodies and our home planet was formed over the billions of years. There is a stillness, a peace, in the creatures that appear, that grows naturally out of this approach, which seems to resonate with people.

It behoves us, I think, to feel more charity, caritas, love: to open wide the hand of gentleness. These pieces I’ve made will likely endure, long after our lives are forgotten, but perhaps this quietness, these silent messages, carried by the stone, can be in the world, both as witnesses to beauty and care, and as an apology, a witness for the damage done – and as a prayer, an aspiration that with consciousness, we can heal, somehow, some time…

Emily Young, Santa Croce, May 2025