I have been adding to my doll collection through making, finding and remaking. Here are some old and new additions to the family.

In December 2010 I exhibited with 35 artists from around Europe. “This exhibition displays 35 artist’s from around Europe and their visions of what happens when we peer behind the curtain and see the glitches in the makeup of our reality. ” – Tom G Adriani (curator).
The work that I created for the show was a continuation of my fascination with dolls, and how dolls are usually representations of perfection. My dolls are anything but perfect, each face is taken from the same mould and distorted in a different way. My work was shown in a dilapidated domestic setting. What appeared to have once been a comfortable living room, had now been stripped back exposing a sewage pipe that runs directly through the centre of the space. The tearing away of the surface layers of normality and comfort exposes the realities of life and human nature.

Coverage:
The Cactus Lab
AN Review

My work is primarily conceptual. I make objects that represent my thoughts and findings in life. I enjoy dark humour and am particularly interested in the audience’s reaction to the unusual and absurd. This work is a continuation of the theme of my recent dissertation ‘Confronting the Abject’, exploring human reaction to the abject physical form. Man has always been fascinated by people and animals with physical peculiarities. Although visually we are drawn to the unusual and unknown, we are most comfortable when we view them from a ‘safe’ distance.

“The suggestion of contact and contamination, the exposure of the visceral and the fear of the unknown and the uncontrollable, all contribute to the fascination of the grotesque”.

This series of work breaks down the barriers between the viewer and the viewed. The work references dolls. Dolls usually represent absolute normality. Everything symmetrical, nothing out of place, an inanimate, perfect form to be loved, hugged and nurtured.

The eyes of the pieces are all important; another connection between the onlooker and the subject, the glass eyes of the dolls stare back at the viewer, the mirrored eyes ensure the viewer is confronted with their own reflection.

The forms were originally hand modelled in wax. Wax has a vast history in anatomical sculpture. In the 19th century wax was used to represent the human form for medical education. Eventually these wax works, many representing disease and deformity, became major attractions for the paying public in travelling shows. It was a way of viewing physical abnormalities without fear of contamination.

The models are cast in porcelain, making them ambiguous and precious. I believe there is beauty in abnormality and that obscurities enrich my life.

Indicated work photographed by Jonny Briggs.

Coverage:

ARTS THREAD

Craft council magazine

Annabel Wightman, James Page and I set ourselves the task of working within a gallery environment to build an exhibition experimenting with the versatility of wax. Wax has been used in sculpture throughout the ages for casting and modelling and is often a hidden process. We felt the need to bring the material to the foreground by exposing some of the ways in which it could be used. Annabel has used microcrystalline wax poured into moulds made of alginate and plaster scrim. James has used dipping and pouring methods with wax and incorporated this with mixed media. I used modelling wax to create sculptural forms.

The Sarcophagus of Lun Freud. Hand Built stoneware and terracotta, printed with oxides saggar fired. Press – moulded earthenware sarcophagus with gold leaf and antique wax.

This piece was created in response to a site specific project for the Freud Museum, London. The museum is the house that Freud escaped to during the Second World War. Freud came to the house with everything he needed to feel comfortable and homely including his family, his housekeeper and his dog. A dog was an important member of his family.

Freud thought dogs had a special sense that allowed them to judge human character. He also felt that the presence of a dog had a calming influence on his patients. When Freud moved to England his dog at the time Lun was quarantined for six months before being reunited with his master, a disturbing experience for Lun and Freud no doubt. During the last months of Freud’s life Lun couldn’t go near to Freud due to the smell of his decaying wound caused by the cancer in his jaw.

This must have been an uncanny experience for the dog and Freud. Freud talked about the uncanny being ‘that class of frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar’. Freud was fascinated by ancient Egypt. The collection of antiquities in the museum includes an abundance of Egyptian artefacts, including Shabtis, mummification bandages and many statues. These findings lead to the creation of a mummified version of Lun Freud. The piece was placed in front of the fire place in Freud’s study. Lun could be reunited with his master in the afterlife.

For more information, visit the project website.

These pieces are a selection of hand built works. I spent the first year at the Royal College of Art breaking away from usual ceramic techniques and trying out new methods. This included a variety of clays, different glazing and decorating techniques including screen printing and decal printing. Some pieces were press moulded, others slab built. The result of my experiments are shown, some successful others not so.

When drinking from a vessel, we take its cleanliness for granted. The mouth is an orifice through which germs can be unknowingly consumed. ‘I once served Jeremy Kyle a drink in a bar. I considered rubbing the wart on my thumb around the rim of his glass’. The drinks vendor can carry out their secret revenge when serving the unsuspecting customer.

The ‘Jeremy Kyle Oral Protection Kit’ ensures Jeremy can be reassured that he is protected from oral contamination wherever he chooses to drink. The kit references the protection of maternity; the teat of a baby’s bottle can be suckled on, taking Jeremy back to the security of infanthood.

The act of suckling on a teat in public would though induce humiliation, a familiar word in Kyle’s vocabulary. Jeremy’s career relies upon the exploitation of people’s fears and difficulties, to entertain. Kyle undertakes medical tests regularly on his guests, for example the paternity test.

This ‘Oral Protection Kit’ puts the tests into his own hands. The smart, secure, business like exterior of ‘Jeremy Kyle’s Oral Protection Kit’, is opened to expose Jeremy’s insecurity and paranoia: A display of negative emotion for the entertainment of the public.

This body of work is based on the chance encounters I have witnessed in Manchester and the strange people that seem to be drawn to me as I go about my everyday routine. I came to think of these people as messengers. I related them to the city’s pigeons, the scarred and tainted messengers who get under peoples feet. I was drawn to the two separate worlds that collide in the city. The middle class ‘Pinot Grigio’ drinking office workers and the underworld of the poor and working classes.

This idea of contrasting worlds also became apparent in China Town, Manchester, especially when I heard about the massive outbreak of rats in the area. The neon lights of the restaurants attract us to the delicate cuisines that these establishments offer, but underneath this glamour there is a host of rats feeding off our waste.

The work is about finding inspiration in the oddities that appear around every corner. My ceramic pieces more than anything are amusing. Laughter is a reflex action, a way of dealing with harsh realities, but nonetheless laughter for me is one of the most important parts of my life.

The turtle with a rats head contains the recipe for turtle soup. Humour is a very British way of dealing with life’s conundrums. How dull would life be if everything was nice, everyone was nice, everywhere was clean, and no one had an unclean thought? And so these objects that I’ve brought into the world run along the theme that has been a constant throughout my work, that being the very fine line between fun and filth.

Some of the pieces contain or incorporate the stories I have been told by drunks and homeless people in the city. A lot of the objects were slip-cast from cheap ornaments and souvenirs. Things bought from pound shops or charity shops in Manchester. Turning the cheap and tacky into something precious, representing these two clashing worlds. Each object tells a story, each is individual and so although from a distance they appear to be a set of mass produced ornaments each has its own story and personality.