Beauty & Terror

The online exhibition Beauty & Terror features new work by Alice Carr, Freyja Lee, Philip Maltman, Casey Moore, and Mary West. This online curation invites viewers to engage with profound existential themes inspired by the iconic words of Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, no feeling is final.”

Responding to Rilke’s call to embrace the full spectrum of human experience, each artist has developed a series of layered, complex works that navigate the delicate tension between opposing forces. Through a masterful manipulation of medium, colour, composition, and symbolism, the collection unfolds as a narrative of stark contrasts, exploring the universal dualities of night and day, good and bad, and the thin, blurred lines where the beautiful and the terrifying coexist.

By juxtaposing these emotional extremes, the exhibition captures life’s inherent volatility and cyclical nature. The featured pieces serve as visual meditations on resilience and impermanence, ultimately reminding us that no state of being is permanent, and that true artistic resonance often lives in the unsettling space between the sublime and the dark.