si sapsford
Soft Matter
Soft materials, domestic objects and the things of childhood become carriers for ideas of vulnerability, pressure, illness, erosion and catastrophe. A crocheted tea cosy takes its pattern from an electron micrograph of a virus; used J-cloths become a nuclear cloud; a child's rabbit weeps continuously. Liquorice laces become a toilet mat, pieces of green carpet are stitched into a landscape, flour becomes a sandcastle giving way, and Play-Doh is pushed through the woven seat of a chair.
These works begin with things that are familiar, comforting or easily overlooked, transforming them through play, displacement and pressure. What appears soft or harmless can carry something much more unsettling.
Liquorish Shoe laces
Nuclear Jay Cloth
Viral Teacosy
Landscape
Play Doh
Cry Baby
Slip
Flour, a child's sandcastle-making bucket and the familiar act of building become a small model of erosion. The castle is placed at the edge of a table, where part of it has already given way and fallen to the floor. Something made to be solid and enduring becomes precarious, suggesting the slow processes by which landscapes, structures and certainties are eroded.
