This exhibition brings together 10 sculptures by artist Sean Henry in the Dixon Jones designed Saïd Business School at Park End Street in Oxford. The figurative sculptures, all anonymous and created between 2001 and 2024, have been installed within the lobby and long Romanesque corridors of the Phase 1 building, culminating in the largest artwork - the 3m high Seated Figure - which can be found outside the front entrance to the Business School, facing directly into the street from the large publicly accessible courtyard.
The show is a thought-provoking installation of polychrome figurative sculptures of varying scales, located in spaces that encourage a dialogue between the modernist architecture, visitors, students and staff alike.
Some of the figures in the exhibition might seem familiar to us, through their stance or contemporary clothing, but unlike portrait sculpture we don't know who they are.
For Sean Henry this ambiguity about their status and location is an important part of the exhibition, allowing us to consider why we engage with them - who are they? and who am I in relation to them?
Sean Henry says:
“I’m interested in ideas around identity. About how we perceive each other - and ourselves in relation to others. We are all very adept at reading the human form, from details of clothing to body language to a look in the eye, and we generally make judgements and decisions about people quite rapidly. With most of my sculptures I strive to keep the identity of the sitter anonymous, and to engage with what I call ‘the psychology of scale’ by deliberately making my figures either smaller or larger than life size. This shift in scale leaves room for the imagination, and allows space for the viewer in terms of what they bring to the encounter with the artworks themselves”
For students and staff at the Saïd Business School, the exhibition is an opportunity to consider both the role of art within a business environment and question the ideas of status and individuality that we often apply to sculptures in a public setting.
Many of Henry's figures contain a palpable emotional charge, inviting us to consider the universal in the everyday, and through a skilful use of modelling and colour his work encourages us to consider what we have in common, and well as what keeps us apart.
[Solo exhibition at the Saïd Business School, Park End Street, Oxford, UK]