Blud
Ebonised Ash
2014
height: 39cm / width: 12.5cm / depth: 10cm
I have a particular fondness for masks, and in particular those Tiki masks that characterise Polynesian culture. Their bold abstract forms have always seemed to me to have not only a joy and a humour about them, but also a contemporary quality.
This piece is my take on the idiom, although as soon as the carving started to take shape, I felt he had more of a devilish quality than a protective ancestral one – hence the naming of the piece after a mischievous Slavic sprite. Whittled from an ash log, and given a rich black waxed finish with a gilded tooth, the carved mask is supported by a rod of clear acrylic secured into a base of resin-covered blue glass pebbles allowing it to ‘hover’ in space.
Private Collection