See Heads with Tales at Salisbury Cathedral

Emily Young, one of Britain’s greatest contemporary sculptors, brings seven and a half newly sculpted Angel Heads to Salisbury Cathedral from 20 November 2008 to 8 February 2009 as the final and most spectacular art installation celebrating the iconic building’s 750th anniversary.

The seven and a half heads, one for each century of the Cathedral’s history, will be installed in three different locations. Up to one metre square and weighing almost a tonne, they are sculpted from the same Purbeck stone as the Cathedral. The four largest heads will be placed in the main nave surrounding and reflecting in the already much celebrated new living water font by William Pye. Two more will be situated in the Trinity Chapel facing the famous Prisoner of Conscience Window and one and a half will be found in the cloisters looking towards the Cathedral’s soaring spire.

Canon Treasurer Mark Bonney said, “We are very excited at the prospect of seeing Emily Young’s new Angel Head sculptures here in the Cathedral. Everyone who has visited us since 2004 will have seen her sleek and almost translucent ‘Lunar Disc’ sculpture in the Cathedral Close which never ceases to amaze, particularly when the sun shines through the onyx stone. It is a great honour for us that Emily has sculpted these new and truly powerful Angel Heads to exhibit here. Through her art these heads represent for us a deep sense of spirituality, humanity and optimism and we expect many a photographer to take on the challenge of picturing their magnificent reflections in our new font!”

Young, described as having ‘inherited the mantle as Britain’s greatest female stone sculptor from Dame Barbara Hepworth’ has work featured in public and private collections all over the world, and has been working on these sculptures for the past three months. “I use the word ‘angel’ to describe the stone heads I make, and the discs too, because in its original form the word simply meant ‘messenger from the heavens to man.”

She continued, “The word ‘angel’ also carries an imaginative message. They see timelessly and beyond space, are more beauty-filled and wise than us and they are like mirrors to our most high-minded desires and visions – ideal imaginative creatures, reflections in the heavens. These stone heads are born of moments of consciousness of what and where we are. They are the stone embodiments of mankind’s high aspirations; the arch-angel traditionally embodied these aspirations, compassionate, all knowing, just. And there is an acknowledgement that our human aspirations are pitiful in the face of the universe, but valuable for all that. Stone or flesh, we are all the stuff of the universe, star dust, in differing forms.”

For more information, log on to Salisburycathedral.org.uk.