‘Tools, Instruments and Toys’
These words describe objects that narrate language through use and being used, ‘action through interaction’. They propose an opportunity to role-play a ‘performance’ between the animate and inanimate.
The pieces are based upon the celebration of function and invention through the over-ellaboration of its visual language as a narrative to entice, tease and seduce play and participation.
I am curious about the slowness within everyday functional objects whose mechanisms are of a primitive and humbling nature: ‘manual’ objects whose use requires fuller physical effort, dedication and investment from the user, promoting the idea that such heightened attention encourages a relationship of gained intimacy and ritual.
The layers of complexcities and compationate details act as invitations welcomimg a behaviourial language of communication to be indulged.
Buba
The world of children is populated with imaginary entities. Monsters and fairies can be as real to children as the closets and beds they hide under. That can be scary. In most cases, when a child complains about the monster under his bed, an adult will shine a light under there to prove, through cold harsh logic, that there is no such thing. This approach has to drawbacks: one is that monsters are usually invisible when deliberately searched for. The second is that this rational approach little by little kills of the part of the mind that can imagine on such levels of intensity. This is a loss we are not even aware of until we are all grown up and devoid of imagination. What Dark Matter offers is an IRRATIONAL SOLUTION TO IRRATIONAL FEARS.
It is a fetish object; armed with the toddler’s own fallen milk teeth it provides protection from imaginary monsters. It is not child like in its appearance and will remain relevant in its design for a life time. That’s also why it is made of ceramic material, natural and eternal. It is a vessel for our fears and for our capability to imagine things into being. It should be treasured for a life time and it is meant to outlive us and be passed on.
Decoration multiplies out of control like bacteria or fungus spreading over a surface. Giddy patterning and adornment show us a world where matter is continuously in motion and mystery can be found in detritus, decay and the mundane. When a subject is pushed to its extreme the opposite may arise; luxury and glamour turn to disintegration, pleasure becomes excess and sweetness turns to nausea. Such play upon the decorative can produce a dark undercurrent.
The work connotes the redundancy and renewal of an object, connecting the past with the present. Using a mix of sources such as antique artefacts, junk shops and museum displays.
The objects exaggerate and parody historical ornamentation. They have an animated life and energy of their own. Pushing the objects into the realm of the fantasy. Such as the Antler vase, in which a scroll shape forms the ears of a vase. In the Pull it together series decorative roping found typically round the rim of vessels spirals out of control, becoming like hair or a tangle web of wires. The works explore modern day lifestyles and anxieties through the adornment appearing to and unravel and fall apart.
Still Life Meltdown is a tale of the space between what we know and what we see. By entering this space the viewer becomes aware of their imaginative reflex to perceive a contextual
narrative when these two are contradictory.
The objects carry familiar features of the everyday however the suggestion of an unfamiliar physical action insinuates a supernatural narrative….
What has happened?
…Is this the end?
In our uncertain gaze the objects appear to deform in front of our eyes; they are in meltdown. We ask if their form will change in time or when we are absent. What we see makes us wonder and it is here, in the space between knowledge and imagination, that the real tale comes alive and is told.
Half Objects
Objects have been sliced up, simplified or re-arranged, transforming what was once familiar into something new. Purity of material is essential, the matt surface is used to absorb or reflect light, and crisp clean edges sit in playful juxtapositions alongside intense detail, pattern and texture.
The classical has been transformed into the contemporary, and the viewer is drawn into the object to look again.
Gold Top milk bottles
Traditional English glass milk bottles have been cast in porcelain, exploring a relationship between industrial reproduction and the handmade. Material qualities that may be accidental marks or imperfections are explored and exposed, then transformed into beautiful details and delicate patterns contrasting to the industrial shape and text of the bottles.
Referencing traditional golden toped milk bottles that were used for the luxury full fat milk from Jersey and Guernsey, a ‘Gold Top’ has been added, making these ‘Luxury’ milk bottles of now.
As well as referring to the hand of the maker, and the process of making, ‘Gold Tops’ bring personal associations to each user: Memories of childhood milk drinking, of milk deliveries, birds pecking at lids, bottles being washed, returned and re-used.
‘Gold Top’ is a contemporary milk bottle that delights the riches of the past
