Image from Jem Southam’s book, Ray’s Sheds
Jem Southam's new book reviewed in The Guardian
Ray Exworth (1930–2015) spent six decades creating one of Britain’s most extraordinary bodies of sculpture – and almost nobody has seen it. Hidden inside a labyrinth of sheds on a remote Cornish smallholding, his vast, obsessive constructions have remained locked away from the world, visited only by a fortunate few. Even his wife Susie, 92, was largely kept out. “I could not visit without an invitation!” she recalls.
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A new book by photographer Jem Southam, Ray’s Sheds, provides unprecedented access to Exworth’s stunning work for the first time. Southam believes only 20 people have seen inside Ray’s sheds. His book is not only a detailed document of an exceptional art practice that may never otherwise see the light of day, but an intriguing inquiry into what it means to be an artist – and what the purpose of art is – when it is never publicly seen.