Absent Presence: Mary Stephenson and Rachel Whiteread

British artists Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963) and Mary Stephenson (b. 1989) both create works that evoke or record empty spaces and inanimate objects, especially furniture, that are nonetheless charged with human presence. Whiteread is known for her cast sculptures, which, rather than replicating objects, instead cast the space inside or around everyday objects, furniture and architectural structures. Her sculptures record not only the form of the objects cast, but also their surfaces and the palpable imprints that humans leave on their surroundings. As casts, her sculptures may also be interpreted as a kind of ‘ghost’ or ‘memory’ of the absent objects, some of which even take on anthropomorphic associations as in her rubber hot water bottle ‘Torso’ (1993). In her series relating to bookshelves and libraries, Whiteread positions her books with the spines positioned inwards, making their titles and narratives unidentifiable. In ‘Library Reading’ (1980), these forms are reduced to an abstracted minimalist grid while ‘Untitled’ (2000) may be understood in association with Whiteread’s contemporaneous project, the Holocaust Memorial in Judenplatz, Vienna (2000). Both sculptures are formed from casts made from inward facing books on shelves, transforming these into an impenetrable inverted library. 

In this new body of work, Stephenson creates evocative worlds in paint which, while devoid of figures, consistently point to human activity. In ‘Glossy Floor’ (2023), a collection of children’s toys appears temporarily abandoned, their colourful geometric forms here metamorphosed into an uncanny still-life. In ‘Round’ (2023), the object is abstracted from any identifiable context and yet the way in which a cloth has been purposefully laid across the circular form implies care and attention. In both ‘Pink Chair’ (2023) and ‘Chest of Drawers’ (2022) domestic furniture is displaced, now occupying ambiguous spaces that activate the imagination and seem to allude to wider narratives that nevertheless remain elusive. ‘Chair’ draws on a long artistic tradition in which unoccupied chairs act as potent signifiers of absent figures. Here however, in another case of inversion, a house occupies the pale pink chair rather than the other way around. Both are wrapped and intertwined by soft white gauzy veils, suggesting both fragility and protection. This sense of fragility is taken to the point of precariousness in ‘Thin House’ (2023) in which a delicate, incomplete paper house appears so tenuous it might collapse at any moment. In ‘Chest of Drawers,’ furniture arranged at unusual angles seems to set up a kind of dialogue between objects. Some of the drawers have been left open, as if abandoned mid use, suggesting a kind of liminal in-betweenness, a conversation unfinished, a project not yet complete.

 Both Whiteread and Stephenson demonstrate how often overlooked aspects of architecture, domestic objects and the spaces they occupy are fertile with potential meaning. Neither artist makes such meanings explicit, but their work offers generous opportunities for interpretation. These are sculptures and paintings that draw attention to our everyday use of objects and furniture and demonstrate how these can become charged with personal meaning and emotional resonance, in some cases even becoming surrogates for their absent owners, making the absent perpetually present. 

Text by Dr. Jennifer Sliwka