Vessels of Memory, 2011

‘Born on a Monday’, 2012

‘Born on a Monday’, ‘Married on Wednesday’, ‘Died on Saturday’, 2011

‘Fragment’, 2012

‘Memories c.1843’, 2012

‘jack fell down’, (detail) 2012

‘Memories c.2006’, 2012

‘jack fell down’, 2012

‘Marjories first Shoes’, (detail) 2012

‘Marjories first shoes’, (detail) 2012

‘Vessels (of Remembrance)’, 2012

‘Memento Mori (tempus fugit)’, 2012

This body of work was developed from the consideration of this nursery rhyme:

Solomon Grundy born on a Monday

Christened on Tuesday

Married on Wednesday

Took ill on Thursday

Worse on Friday

Died on Saturday

Buried on Sunday

This is the end of Solomon Grundy.

This nursery rhyme was first published in Victorian England and it was the starting point for the ‘Vessels (of Remembrance)’ series. It made me wonder who ‘Solomon Grundy’ was and what was left behind now he was gone.

I started collecting detritus and ‘stuff’ from the Victorian period from antique shops, flea markets and ebay. I felt this collection of things allowed me to piece together a mans life.

Ultimately I reached the conclusion that is was a mothers memories I was thinking about and looking at. That it is mothers’ who mourn all the lost moments and who fetishise every last momento from a time gone forever.