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Memento Mori

  • Writer: Inglewood Arts Hub
    Inglewood Arts Hub
  • Apr 3
  • 2 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

We humans have developed diverse ways to manage, make sense of, and create meaning from our universal - and yet most mystifying - experience in life: death. 

This includes endeavours to manage, guide, and control:

o    physical processes of decomposition

o    psychological, emotional, and existential/spiritual processes to deal with loss, trauma, and grief

o    social/relational transitional processes to preserve societal continuity


The Latin term, Memento Mori roughly translates to "remember that you die" and it is often expressed in artistic symbols representing the inevitability of death and the impermanence of life, e.g. skulls, still life images.


This Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) style exploration of death, funereal, and memorial rituals includes curated artworks, collected artefacts, and fascinating information on the theme.


The exhibition reflects some central themes in the bodies of work by participating artists: Zoe Yannakis, Haddy Somers, Bruce Reid, Caroline Henson, and Jane Garratt. And also in the photography book by Thomas Liam Ryan and print by Richard Harding.


The exhibition inspired a catalogue that will be published later in 2026.


Jane Garratt

Connect with Jane on Instagram: @janegarratt.art


Caroline Henson

Connect with Caroline on Instagram: @tenebrae_lxxi


Bruce Reid

Connect with Bruce on Instagram: @reidiochre.studio


Haddy Somers

Connect with Haddy on Instagram: @haddysomers.art and @haddysomers.paint


Zoe Yannakis

Connect with Zoe on Instagram: @evil.eunuch


Thomas Liam Ryan

Thomas is an architectural photographer and storyteller based in Tasmania. His beautiful records of the built environment preserve memories for posterity.

His touching book, In Memoriam, and poignant question: When we are gone, where do our memories go? resonated with the exhibitions's themes.

Connect with Thomas:


Richard Harding (1959-2025)

Richard grew up in Perth. He graduated from Curtin University with a fine art degree, majoring in printmaking, and then undertook a graduate diploma in education before moving to Melbourne in the early 1980s.

Richard lived a vibrant creative life. He was inspiring, patient, encouraging, and he embraced all aspects of life with infectious enthusiasm. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep on 3 April 2025 and is profoundly missed by everyone who knew him.

In February 2026, the Australian Print Workshop celebrated Richard's "sustained and influential contribution to the Australian printmaking community as a print artist, educator, and activist" and "his commitment to the art of printmaking - his creativity, wisdom and generosity of spirit" with the APW George Collie Memorial Print Award.

The APW Gallery in Fitzroy hosted Tickled Pink, a retrospective of Richard's 1980-90s work held in the APW collection, curated by his friend and colleague Deborah Williams who said Richard's "command of soft ground technique, the way he built up those textures, the mark-making, the scraping back into the plate, is robust, seductive, almost Rouault-like in its intensity. These images carry an iconic quality, something almost religious in their weight ... these prints have a sculptor's sensibility. Richard was translating three-dimensional mass, the weight and monumentality of those forms, onto the two-dimensional matrix".

And summer became autumn she was not ready for the winter, etching, 1986 from Jane Garratt's collection, gift from the artist, exhibited with the permission of Richard's partner and family


Promotional posters:


 
 
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