Items Similar to Entombment

Zoë Zimmerman - Pandemic #82

Michael Massaia - Sleeper #17

Zoë Zimmerman - Pandemic #56

Zoë Zimmerman - Pandemic #65

Zoë Zimmerman - Pandemic #100

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 9

Theo Ellison
Entombment
2017

$8,606.25

£6,250

€7,309.23

CA$11,775.50

A$12,812.64

CHF 6,784.13

MX$154,144.77

NOK 86,143.37

SEK 78,815.15

DKK 54,610.08

About the Item

27. Theo Ellison (b. 1990) Entombment, 2017 C-type lambda print on paper Edition 1 of 5 Signed, titled, dated and numbered verso 78 x 120 cm. (within frame) Provenance: Theo Ellison; Permanent Collection, Saatchi Gallery; Private Collection, United Kingdom. Exhibition history: Known Unknowns, Saatchi Gallery, 2018; Five Years On, Birmingham Museum Art Gallery, Birmingham, 2018; Art on a Postcard, Photo London Fair, London, 2018; Solo exhibition, MOCA, London, online only, 2020. Literature: Saatchi Gallery, Known Unknowns (London: Saatchi Gallery, 2018), pp. 134-5 Selected media: The London Magazine; Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Arts; Royal College of Art; Source Magazine, 2017. The National, 2 May 2018; Creative Boom, 18 May 2018; Floorr magazine, 10 July 2018; 11 February 2020. The subtleties of Ellison’s informed image-making approach permeate Entombment with delicate intensity. Ellison infuses the familiar domestic rock dove with a masterly pathos, rendering the animal supine, its lifeless claws curled poignantly at the central point of the composition. Characteristic of Ellison’s experimentation with symbolistic absurdity, the common pigeon is memorialised with remarkable detail within the figural ‘tomb’ of the photograph. This uncanny approach identifies a beauty within the banal, and imbues the totality of death with an additional, elegantly expressed meaning. The work formerly belonged to the permanent collection of the Saatchi Gallery, London, and formed a central component of the Saatchi 2018 exhibition, Known Unknowns. It comes recently from the private collection of a leading British collector of contemporary art. Entombment examines the fundamentals of death with a complicating voyeurism, testing the boundaries of artistic conventions and the creation and interpretation of imagery. High and low cultures are amalgamated as one, as Ellison elevates the end of the creature’s life to a moment of universal profundity. Indeed, the profile elevation of the body borrows from a long tradition, familiar of Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1520-22), and touches on the famed melancholy of Henry Wallis’ Chatterton (1856). Ellison applies the usual tenderness and consideration associated with human grief to an animal which typifies urban mundanity, redressing a certain vanity within the human condition. The viewer is subsumed by a monochromatic aura of blues and purple, and disarmed by a deep temporal ambiguity, as the motion of the composition is arrested by the central, lifeless subject. Such is the symbolic relevance of the work that it received considerable media attention as part of the Saatchi exhibition. One contemporaneous review provides a particularly expressive assessment: ‘Ellison takes the London pigeon and “attempts to deify it or sanctify it” deliberately depicting it supine, with its eyes closed, so for the viewer it always “oscillates between sleep and death without resolution”. […] Asleep or dead you feel as though you have come to it accidentally, as though you shouldn’t be looking’ (Bryan). Theo Ellison is a London-based artist known for his distinctive experimentation with romantic and absurd imagery, often exploring the relationship between nature and artifice, pathos and humour. Ellison graduated with a Master’s degree in photography from the Royal College of Art in 2017, and is presently based at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation in Archway. Ellison has more recently progressed towards video-based installations and text, including CGI and moving image projects designed to examine the behaviour of art and creation. Ellison has exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, Cambridge University, Birmingham Museum Art Gallery, and Quad Gallery. His residencies include the Zabludowicz Collection Master Class, Florence Trust Studio Residency, and the National Trust artist-in-residence programme (Coughton Court). Bibliography and further reading: Bryan, Alexander Douglas, ‘Review: Known Unknowns at the Saatchi Gallery’, The London Magazine, 2017

Creator:
Theo Ellison (1990, British)
Creation Year:
2017
Dimensions:
Height: 30.71 in (78 cm)Width: 42.13 in (107 cm)
Medium:
C Print
Movement Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
The work is in excellent and stable condition. Some light markings to the frame commensurate with an exhibited artwork.
Gallery Location:
Henley-on-Thames, GB
Reference Number:
Seller: Theo Ellison1stDibs: LU2820215585612

More From This Seller

View All

Cinder

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

Joel Tomlin (b. 1969) Cinder, 2004 Oil on linen Signed and titled verso 183 x 157 cm. Provenance: Joel Tomlin; MW Projects, London, 2004; Permanent Collection, Saatchi Gallery; Chri...

Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Joel Tomlin
Cinder, 2004

$3,580 Sale Price

60% Off

Green Shoots

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

Michael Chance (B. 1987) Green Shoots, 2021 Oil on canvas Signed lower left Titled, signed and dated verso 153.5 x 122 cm. Provenance: Michael Chance; Private Collection, United ...

Category

2010s Cubist More Art

Materials

Oil

Michael Chance
Green Shoots, 2021

$4,819

Portrait of an Arab, with pyramids beyond

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

Central European School, second half 19th century Portrait of an Arab, with pyramids beyond Oil on canvas 66.3 x 55.2 cm.; (within frame) 86.9 x 69.9 cm. Unsigned Provenance: Privat...

Category

Mid-19th Century Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Portrait of an Arab, with pyramids beyond

$12,048

The Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist

By Andrea Del Sarto

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

Florentine, mid-16th century Circle of Tomaso D’Antonio Manzuoli, known as Maso da San Friano (1536-1571) The Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist After Andrea del Sarto (1486-1...

Category

15th Century and Earlier Renaissance Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

The Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist, Mid-16th century

$11,704 Sale Price

46% Off

Watercolour study of a resting infant, possibly the artist s daughter

By William Henry Hunt

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

William Henry Hunt OWS (1790-1864) (attrib.) Study of a resting infant Watercolour and graphite heightened with zinc oxide on paper 13.9 x 18.5 cm.; (within frame) 31.1 x 25.6 cm. Un...

Category

Mid-19th Century Victorian Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

William Henry Hunt
Watercolour study of a resting infant, possibly the artist s daughter

$3,786

Portrait of an artistic Gentleman, c. 1720s

By John Vanderbank

Located in Henley-on-Thames, England

John Vanderbank (London 1694 - London 1739) Portrait of an artistic Gentleman, c. 1720s Three-quarter-length, wearing a turban Oil on canvas 125.5 x 101.7 cm.; (within frame) 145.6...

Category

1720s Old Masters Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Covid Vanitas: The Pandemic Still Lifes" On the first day of quarantine I began photographing the people-less quiet of a home and studio in isolation. The still lifes are a visual ...

Category