The skull portrait is a symbol of universal human consciousness contained within every person. Each portrait begins with a simple desire: to give form to the deepest essence of a person, their innermost being.
The portraits are informed in part by Terror Management Theory, which proposes that much of human behaviour is shaped by our awareness of mortality. Although a reminder of death, these works explore ways in which identity, culture and legacy emerge in response to that awareness.
At its heart, these works grapple with one of life's key questions: how to live as fully and richly as possible while finding meaning against the backdrop of aging and inevitable death. For me, the best answer to this question is the act of making art.
In addition to being a celebration and forensic confirmation of the subject's existence and individuality, they also offer a glimpse of something more universal within the individual: the shared human experience that exists beneath status, appearance, achievement, biography and even beyond mortality itself.
This is reflected in the shift in recent years towards anonymization and titling the works not by the subject's name but by their given archetype or alias.
The portraits have also become more humorous over the years in keeping with the tone of Vincent Van Gogh's Skeleton Smoking a Cigarette. The idea of death as an absurd cosmic joke is a theme woven throughout the works.
"THE FINAL GATHERING"
The Final Gathering represents the culmination of more than thirty years of work on the Skull Portraits concept. Drawing from a thirty-year archive of Skull Portraits, it brings together a final assembly of archetypal figures whose identities are transformed into universal characters and are presented in a range of different formats suited to storytelling, animation and immersive experiences.
A short film giving an insight into the process of a skull portrait commission.
PREVIOUS SKULL PORTRAITS
"In my skull portraits I aim to reveal some deeper essence of the subject's identity balanced with my own subjective impression or experience of them".
Alexander de Cadenet
"These works act as a celebration of existence while simultaneously questioning the value of wordly endeavour"
Tarnya Cooper, Ex-Chief Curator National Portrait Gallery, (1999)
"In his skull portraits, de Cadenet is using modern art language and processes to communicate the vital spiritual teaching of death in a way that is relevant to our time"
Patrick Howe, author of 'The Awakened Artist', in Watkins Mind Body Spirit Magazine (2016)
"De Cadenet’s Skull Portraits re-energise the long histories of the painted vanitas….There is a ghoulish humour in de Cadenet’s jest with the skull image: these will persist, of course long after we become crematorium dust"
Professor Sarah Wilson, (2010)
"Alexander de Cadenet's "skull portraits" are a long-running series, started in 1996, where he uses X-ray machines to capture the inner bone structure of notable sitters. The technique intentionally obscures the specific identity of the person, transforming them into "universal ciphers for the human condition" and raising questions about mortality and identity"
Richard Dyer, (2015)
"The artist uses images and sculpture to dispel taboos about death and reveal the souls of his subjects"
Fabrizio Fasanella, (2021)
"The skull portraits tackle both the the idea of mortality and also the question of how we construe human identity"
Edward Lucie-Smith, (2016)