100, 2023
Crocheted silk noil and wool, soil from Cognac
18cmL x 18cmW x 40cmH
Commissioned by LOUIS XIII as a multi-media artwork, presented with video
This sculpture is the culmination of 100 transformations. The same yarn used to crochet the 100 iterations before this sculpture takes on character and age over time, the multiple unravellings resulting in the painted portions of yarn spreading out from the core of the sculpture. The paint ‘marks’ certain stitches, and we see where it has travelled away from the stitches beside it, or reunite with them again in different iterations. This reminds me of chance encounters with seemingly random people in our lives, who leave an impression on us.
The form of this sculpture was inspired by vessels (especially the marble ones) I admired while visiting the Louvre in Paris, and is a combination of the different techniques and shapes I explored while creating the first 100 iterations. There is an element of nature with the petal and leaf-like structures. The top of the vase folds into itself to form a double-walled ‘bowl’ within a bowl, creating a ‘moat’ in which soil collected from Cognac has been placed. It creates the impression of a ‘fountain’, where this greyish soil replaces water. Like all my vessels, this was worked as a single piece, without joinings or an internal structure, and is hollow through like a tunnel, or fountain.
We often hear the phrase ‘fountain of life’— this sculpture carries in it the soil of the vineyards in Cognac, which contains all the goodness that matures into the flavourful layers in cognac as it ages. It represents the beginning, and the spring of life for this cognac we taste decades later.