Press Story
6 April – 3 September 2023
The Weston Gallery
Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) announces the first UK museum solo exhibition by artist Lindsey Mendick.
Lindsey Mendick’s solo exhibition will transform The Weston Gallery at YSP, taking the form of a multi-media installation that investigates dreams, Gothic stories, television and cultural experiences from the 1990s. Bringing the artist's recurring anxiety dream to life, Where The Bodies Are Buried takes the form of a decaying house with dark secrets beneath the floorboards.
Works will include ceramics and stained glass emerging from the floor as hands, feet and limbs, with a film playing across several screens creating a chorus for simultaneous viewing. Anxiety dreams have long inspired artists and writers, ranging from Eve’s prophetic dream about eating the forbidden fruit in Paradise Lost, to Surrealist paintings and sculpture depicting hauntings and dream-states. The phrase ‘where the bodies are buried’ means to possess information or secrets about a person or organisation. In Mendick’s installation, the secrets are both literal and metaphorical, the buried bodies signifying her fear of being ‘found out’ and misdeeds of the past being unearthed.
The installation references the popular 1990s UK soap opera Brookside, in which abusive husband and father Trevor Jordache was stabbed to death by his wife Mandy in 1993. Mandy buried his body under the patio, assisted by their daughter Beth who was played by Anna Friel. In a storyline watched and discussed by millions, the body was eventually discovered in 1995 and Mandy and Beth were charged and imprisoned. Mendick reflects on this plotline and the simultaneous, communal television viewing and shared cultural experience of 1990s soaps. Her work mirrors the tensions, crescendo and drama of years-long narratives, in contrast to contemporary on-demand viewing culture. Mendick also draws on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story The Tell-Tale Heart in which a murderer is plagued by the sound of a heartbeat. He assumes it is that of his victim buried below the floorboards, but the sound is likely the narrator’s own heart betraying him. The story is a powerful reflection on paranoia and guilt, driven by the pounding heartbeat as a rhythmic compulsion to confess.
Mendick creates worlds layered with personal anecdotes, timeless myths and popular culture references. She works predominantly with clay – a material that has historically been associated with decoration and the domestic sphere. She acknowledges and subverts these associations, creating intricate works that explore the roles and experiences of women in society. Dark comedy permeates Mendick’s practice, and her confessional approach knowingly combines crushing self-doubt with sensational honesty. Her installations draw on the artist’s own stories and memories, with humorous, grotesque and beautiful results.
While exploring personal anxieties, the installation will draw attention to the layers of history and the lives that have played out on YSP’s grounds over centuries. Seams of clay, Mendick’s primary medium, are present within the earth on the 500-acre site. The clay is intermingled with coal fragments which, via extraction and exhuming elsewhere in Yorkshire, brought wealth and status to the families who shaped this landscape.
Press enquiries
Elise Hammond, Sutton: +44 (0)20 7183 3577 / elise@suttoncomms.com
Kirsty Young, Head of Marketing and PR, YSP / +44 (0)1924 832 515 / comms@ysp.org.uk
Download images at ysp.org.uk/press
Listings information
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield WF4 4LG
Near Wakefield and Barnsley – M1 Junction 38
+44 (0)1924 832631 | ysp.org.uk | @YSPsculpture
Open seven days a week, except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Booking essential, via ysp.org.uk
High Res Image Downloads
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Lindsey Mendick. Photo © Elissa Cray, courtesy Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
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Lindsey Mendick at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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Lindsey Mendick, Where The Bodies Are Buried, installation view at YSP, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
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