Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change,
Into something rich & strange [1]
A creature whose very strangeness helps us to see ourselves more clearly by showing us what we are not [2]
This new body of work by Rachel Joynt comprises of delicate bronze ‘sea forms’, alongside pictographs created from sand and precious metals which explore and compare contrasting themes around our Earth’s wealth and riches. This work plays with the complex relationship between ecology, economy and the ebb and flow within markets and ocean currents.
Joynt brings a level of delicacy and fragility to figurative sculpture that is based on the remnants of sensitive and fragile life forms that were once the inhabits of unpolluted pockets of ocean. She employs Echinoid Skeletons, in particular the sand dollar species, as a metaphor for richness and wealth and the search for rejuvenation and sustenance. These delicately perforated symmetrical forms emanate warm light and optimism in chalky opalescent colours. Permanence, transience and flux are reoccurring themes and her use of sand, light, precious metal dust, glass, bronze and cast iron communicates these concerns. For Joynt, scale is also important, transforming our normal viewpoint by using different magnifications, she allows the subject to take on a new presence.
With thanks to Artlinks, Wink Lighting, Malham Lighting, Cast Ltd and Remco de Fouw.
[1] From The Tempest, William Shakespeare
[2] From The Ancestor’s Tale, Richard Dawkins
