Are We There Yet

2018

NECKPIECE (Hardcore rubble from local and international dirt tracks, new and reclaimed copper, vintage bead necklace, recycled silver)

On Recurrence, Recollection and the Resilience of Material Existence.

When I started collecting these ceramic pieces, some on the beaches and the countryside near my home, and some from as far as Malta and Italy, the artist in me had not yet been born. And I was then just an observer.

It took several years for the puzzle to come together: more aware of materials around me, as well as of places and of the importance of viewing, and beginning to investigate not just the narrative of found objects but the concept of the search itself, I finally realised these ceramic pieces had all been found specifically embedded in dirt tracks, into which they had been compacted as rubble. Earth being extracted, refined, compacted, moulded into domestic ware, fragmented, inserted and compacted again onto earth. And finally extracted again, and remoulded into body-wear.

It is only together that these two parts of me could understand the significance of these fragments, which did otherwise appear only connected in their materiality. It is only together with my artist self that we create knowledge.