In his stained glass folding screen Grief, Brian Clarke confronts viewers with intense scenes of human suffering. The work exists in multiple colour variants.

In the 2020 catalogue Brian Clarke: The Art of Light, Paul Greenhalgh writes:

"It is a site of desperate loss. The screen is made up of a suite of self-portraits, line drawings against a dark ground that signifies utter despair at the death of loved ones. Tears emerge from the tangled, linear faces, and freeze into mirrors, symbolising a sadness that will never go away."

Originally titled ‘SW1P 2ED’, Clarke described the events that inspired this work in 2018:

"It is definitely one of the most biographical. A friend of mine who had been staying with me died. We tried to see his body but we couldn’t actually see it until it was in the mortuary. And then not long after that I had another friend who also died. I spent a lot of time in the Coroner’s Office. SW1P 2ED was the postcode. It was a dark place."

In 2019, Grief was utilised as an integral part of the of stage set and lighting for the first public performance for Ante Terminum Productions’s War is My Condition, an interpretation of Monteverdi’s opera scena Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. It was joined by two of Clarke’s other stained glass screens, Winter and Falling Water.

This folding screen was produced with an innovative technique that eliminates the lead cames traditionally used to support and join stained glass, allowing the glass to interact freely with light and space. Grief exists in an edition of 10 unique variants plus 3 artist’s proofs, published by HENI.