Joanna Sperryn-Jones 

29th June –10th August 2023

Jo Sperryn-Jones’ practice explores the experience of ‘breaking’. Initially this was an investigation into why breaking several bones, through mountain biking, affected her aesthetic preferences. This opened up a multi-faceted response to breaking, loss and celebration, embracing a cycle of life, change and chance. Loss and union combine as a response to both recent bereavement and marriage. The phrase earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust resonate with her glass wax sculptures where the broken fragments and dust are returned to the melting pot to create new iterations. Her forms are transitory, and their temporality enhances the appreciation of their current state. ‘Dust to dust’ can refer to the environmental impact of a manufactured item from its construction to its disposal.

Birds that were brought into her house by her cats are reincarnated in drawings whilst Vacuum-form sculptures containing images of the artist's skin from different parts of her body, in a deliberately ‘Frankenstein’ fashion, await destruction and renewal in readiness for the next chapter of exploration.