This is a sculpture by Rachel Whiteread.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

So what is it? A shed?

Nope. It's a sculpture of the space inside a shed.

​

How about this one?

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

You might need a hand with this one - it's a sculpture of the space under a table.

​

Now that you know that, go back to the image and look again.

See if you can place the original table around it.

The chances are you can, to some degree.

​

You might even say that the table almost becomes visible. As you reconstruct the table around the sculpture it becomes visible or even present.

​

Can you see what the artist has achieved? She has made something, which is otherwise absent, present. It's present to you because of the unique space it leaves behind in its absence.

​

Fascinating as this might be, what is far more significant about Whiteread's work (to me) is that it reminds us of all those other times when something or someone is 'conspicuous by their absence'.  People who have been bereaved speak of being most sharply or warmly aware of their loved one in the spaces which mark their absence; that paradoxically the person becomes most real to them in the situations which confirm that they are no longer there.

​

There is no need to resort to strange or paranormal explanations for this. I am quite sure that a neuropsychologist could give us a plausible reason for what is going on here.  For the grieving person, explanations don't matter anyway.

​

And we don't have to confine ourselves to experiences such as bereavement to know the truth of this dynamic. People who find God at the heart of everything have for generations spoken of those times when God seems completely absent; and how that very absence speaks so eloquently of God's presence and is evidence of that presence.

 

The writer of Psalm 88 speaks of the dreadful isolation s/he feels from God.

​

But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
 Why do you hide your face from me?

​

But s/he isn't telling some bystander.

S/he is telling God. Who is Absent. And Present because of the Absence.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​