Geoffrey Valentine

Geoffrey Valentine by David Stewart is a photographic meditation on the frailty of human existence. It is unlike anything else in Stewart’s long career behind the camera lens; in that it is an unflinching documentation of a deeply personal moment. He exposes himself and the viewer to the lifeless body of his own father laid out in the strangely artificial space of a chapel of rest. In this, it is breath taking in its simplicity and honesty. Memento mori has a long tradition in western art, literally, remember you must die. Typically, this would take the form of a skull strategically placed in the midst of luxury, abundance and the trappings of power. When child mortality, war, poverty and plague was the common lot only the privileged needed reminding that death was life’s inseparable companion. Today things are different. There has never been a culture like ours that, so fears decline and death. Eros has been replaced by Thanatos as the great taboo. In the northern England of Stewart’s younger years, the tradition of laying out the deceased in the parlour for the relatives and neighbours to come and visit to ‘pay their respects’ lingered well into the 20th century. Nowadays the professionals move in to take the body away and manage its medical, legal and ceremonial progression to a kind of finality. Originally Stewart felt moved to take these five images of his father with no real plan to exhibit them; this idea came later. Behind this decision was the realisation that something momentous had happened in his life that could have importance to us all. Geoffrey Valentine’s passing was not tragic in the sense that he had lived a long and largely contented life, and so the loss was not clouded by feelings of remorse. Bereavement is about letting go of something that has come to an end. If we cannot do this successfully, we cling on to that which is no longer there and so we are unable to be open to the new, and life cannot be revivified. The picture of Geoffrey Valentine lying there, still, alone, one hand clasping the other, is an attempt to capture the sublime sense that the person has gone although their body remains. Memento mori, remember you must die relativizes life as a comparatively short passage between two ineffable states. From non-being to being, followed by the inevitable return to non-being. There lies the great mystery of life and death. Our culture has split apart these two and created a cult of youth that strives to deny decline and death. However, in doing so it makes us slaves to our appetites, too easily mesmerised by all the baubles and goodies an advanced consumerist society can offer. Too much attachment to and immersion in all this materialism and consumption means we are condemned to living in a state of anxiety, for life becomes a desperate defence against its inseparable counterpoint. How to escape this dilemma? Return the fundamentals of existence to their proper proportion and relationship. The best in our culture does this when it brings us closer to the truth of our short time on earth. This can sometimes be uncomfortable viewing; Geoffrey Valentine is not an easy take, but if there is any truth in the above it is worth the effort.