PYRAMID Gallery’s posthumous exhibition of the last remaining works available for sale by the Cumbrian artist and sculptor Lorna Graves opens in York on Saturday at 11am.

“My work is concerned with the balance between body and soul,” said Lorna, who died in 2006.

“It is at crucial moments of our lives, times of ceremony, of initiation, of epiphany and of death, that awareness of the relationship between body and soul is strongly felt.”

The work is being exhibited in liaison with the trustees of Lorna Graves’s estate at one of her favoured contemporary art galleries, run by Terry Brett in Stonegate, York.

“‘When my partner and I took over the gallery in 1994, we were always delighted to receive a package, every six months or so, from Lorna Graves,” says Pyramid proprietor Terry. “Her work was always presented like a box of random ancient artefacts, wrapped in paper and smelling of the smoke from being fired.

“Lorna was very humble about the sculptures, but as soon as we put them on the shelves they assumed a presence and an air of some sort of sculptural authority. They knew their place. They never stayed very long in the shop and I was always asking her for more to be sent.

‘Sadly, we never met her. Only spoke on the telephone. We were shocked to hear that she had died of breast cancer in 2006; Lorna had not told people that she was seriously ill and had continued to supply us with new work right up until about six months before she passed away.”

Terry is proud that Pyramid Gallery has been asked to curate this final exhibition of Lorna’s work.

“Working with trustees of Lorna’s estate Judith Clarke and Jan-Alice Merry, we’re able to present the paintings, prints, calligraphy samples and 15 remaining pieces of ceramic with a sensitivity to the spiritual sense that was so important to the artist,” he says.

“Visitors will come away from this show with a real understanding of Lorna’s connection with the earth and her intense sense of the ritual and sacred objects.”

Lorna Graves’s Body And Soul exhibition will run from Saturday to July 9; gallery opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and 11am to 4.30pm on Sundays.