I Should Be Loyal to the Nightmare of My Choice
Zinc-plated steel, graphite, wax, coal, cord, bakelite, copper, slate

180 cm height, width / depth variable depending on installation

2016

 

I should be Loyal to the Nightmare of my Choice (Nightmare Series) is a sculptural grouping of 3 pieces made from industrial offcuts and found materials.

 

Each sculpture is precariously balanced, like a Jenga tower standing tall moments before it collapses into a pile. One thing is tacked onto another, as a house with many additions over the years, all slightly irregular. The sculptures are able to stand because of a system of tensions and weights that exploits the natural flexibility and elasticity of the steel. Although made from steel, they are light and flimsy - easily lifted with one hand. 

 

There is melancholy pleasure in things that have a post-apocalyptic skeletal form, as if these spindly and wobbly apparitions are all that is left after a fiery catastrophe.  Along the way they have picked up pieces of detritus, both organic materials such as coal and petrified wood, industrial relics (the copper float and Bakelite knobs) as well as obviously hand-crafted things like a rustic copper chain and a canvas and brass rope.  The coal and the petrified wood are made from the death of living organisms, preserved in the earth and transformed into an inert substance.  The industrial materials point to a height of human industry and ingenuity. The handmade elements symbolise a return to or continuation of low-fi craft based practices. Through a catastrophe, the different materials have been united into a conglomeration.