Fruit 0.5m (w) x 0.5m (l) x 0.5m (h)

Fresh fruit (apple, orange, strawberry, mango, grapefruit, plum, kiwi etc), nylon threads, painted wooden chair

Exhibited at AKI Akademie voor Beeldende Kunst, Enschede, Holland

Text taken from a statement written by the artist March 2002:

Fruit is suspended by transparent fishing wires from the ceiling in the centre of the gallery to form a block-like mass of colour at the eye level of the viewer. The fruit is rotting and so gives off a pungent smell. This smell in itself creates a strong presence, becoming more sickly and pungent each day, catching in the nose and the back of the throat. As the mass rots, the juices and eventually pieces of fruit fall from the strings that hold them. Below the block is a wooden chair. It is painted white so that the residues from the fruit can be seen more clearly and to emphasize the colour of the fruit. The sugars from the drips of fruit juice begin to solidify on the chair and become thick and deep brown, settling around half-liquid mounds of rotting orange, mango and strawberry. Juices run off the back of the chair to form a puddle on the floor beneath. Fruit flies breed on the hanging mass and eventually all the fruit falls, so the floor becomes tacky with sugars and the viewer has to tread carefully within the space.

SIT.

The title is a command. It makes reference to people's willingness to do what they are told without question, things that are the 'done thing', things that are expected of us. The viewer does not sit. In making this work, part of my intention was to explore the relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. I try to force the fruit to become somehow inorganic, manufactured, pressing it into this invisible cube, which ultimately will not contain it. The fruit sags and rots, falling to the empty seat below. The rotting is important. It suggests waste or disappointment, something unrectifiable. The passing of time is important. The fruit rots, smells and drips; the viewer gets older; this is where the two 'meet'. This work made people feel dirty; they wanted to protect themselves from the juices, maybe because they subconsciously remind us of our own decay. The work was playful, only disgusting because of what we are taught to see as disgusting. Malicious only because of our own prejudice against decay.

The following images document the installation as it changed over the course of the exhibition.

Photos taken by Claire Morgan.

 

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Untitled (2002)
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Untitled (2003)
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Verwurzeln
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Approx 30cm long

Life-sized jumbo party balloon cast in lead

Emotional Response, exhibition at The Lagan Lookout, Belfast, 2004.

 

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The More I Want You
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1m (w) x 1m (l) x 0.08m (h)

Fresh strawberries and painted chipboard

From Exposure, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, 2003. A layer of hundreds of fresh strawberries, left to rot over the course of the exhibition.

Photos taken by Claire Morgan.

 

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Works on paper 2002 - 2003
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