Contrived object 29 – Mr Spalding

Electronic components, varnish, copper wires, perspex mirror, tennis racket, jesmonite base, 71 × 20 × 12 cm, 2020


This new series of ‘Contrived Object’ is just nothing but faces contrived with what I had in my studio these days of lockdown.

Sometimes by just looking at an object, the unconscious mind knows the way the object would like to be transformed.

The egg shape of the ‘head’ of these vintage rackets reminded me of something yet familiar but at the moment lost.

The result is a composition that resembles vaguely a human face made from a recycled object from the past, the racket, clashing with the rest of the elements, electronic parts, and the found objects.

Then, an anomaly called ‘pareidolia’, the mechanism that leads our brain to bring things and objects of all kinds back to known and sensible forms does the rest.

Will these be the faces of the future?