THE HOLLOW FRAMES
2019
Steel, wrought iron components, screws, lacquer, wax, brass rods, pewter, makeup palette
96 x 69 x 25 cm
2019
Steel, wrought iron components, solar panel, chain, rubber, magnets, marker pen, lacquer, wax, bolts, washers, screws
206 x 120 x 57 cm (dimensions variable)
2019
Steel, wrought iron components, makeup palette, lacquer, wax, screws
73 x 51 x 12 cm
2019
Steel, wrought iron components, lacquer, wax, bolts, washers, screws
118 x 102 x 35 cm (dimensions variable)
2019
Steel, wrought iron components, metal plate staple, bolts, screws, washers, Co2 cartridges, shaving mirror, rope, lacquer, wax
206 x 120 x 57 cm
2020
Steel, wrought iron components, screws, lacquer, wax, brass rods, pewter, plastic makeup palette
68 x 51 x 22 cm
2016 - 2019
Mixed media
28 x 12 x 9 cm each, approx
The Hollow Frames is a series of sculptural wall works in which intricate steel structures hold fragments of contemporary consumer culture that often evoke bodily references: makeup palettes, mirrors, necklaces, nitrous oxide cartridges, and hooped earrings. These objects are suspended within decorative frameworks of cut and welded steel sheets, pre-fabricated rods, and structural elements, forming hanging compositions that resemble quasi-historical tableaux. They hover between ornament, mobile, and fantastical religious architecture, appearing simultaneously as fragments of triptychs or enigmatic commercial displays.
Fabricated using traditional metalworking techniques, the structures draw heavily on the language of decorative ironwork, particularly German ironwork of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced in southern and western Germany. Originally developed to protect fragile glass or to divide sacred and public space, these grilles and gates evolved into a rich ornamental tradition. Iron bars and flat steel shapes are twisted into vegetal scrolls, masks, monsters, and hybrid forms, mimicking organic growth while performing a restrictive function. Their designs often acknowledged a paradox: objects meant to guard and imprison were transformed into elaborate displays of beauty and craft.
Within these frameworks, contemporary objects occupy the centre of the compositions like small altars or offerings. Makeup palettes, mirrors, jewellery, and other items act as ritualised elements. The works blend the sacred and the profane, connecting traditional craft and architecture with the ephemeral rituals of modern life.
Steel shapes occasionally depict silhouetted figures, weathervane motifs, or decorative flourishes, while copper or brass rods (often used as lightning rods) echo vertical architecture, creating a subtle hierarchy that organises the objects like devotional icons in a tableau. These performative objects suggest the presence of ghostly or mythic characters, whose corporeal and spectral gestures can be imagined by the viewer, bending over palettes, adjusting rods, or tapping on swinging steel arrows.
Fairy tales, sideshows, folk art, and forgotten design languages circulate through the series. Roses, masks, and ornamental flourishes echo symbolic systems from the past while simultaneously recalling the theatrical aesthetics of carnival displays or shop-window glamour. The works suggest that cultural memory behaves like an echo chamber, where motifs and narratives resurface across centuries in altered guises.
By assembling these materials, The Hollow Frames proposes that the visual and symbolic languages of earlier eras never fully disappear. They persist in altered forms within contemporary design, advertising, and everyday objects. The works bring these fragments together as enigmatic tableaux—part sculpture, part relic, part ornamental structure—where the craft traditions of the past and the seductive surfaces of the present become entangled in the frozen steel bracken of a fairy tale forest.
In this sense, the “frame” is no longer simply a boundary around an artwork. It becomes an active structure that shapes what can be seen and imagined. These hollow frameworks resemble windows connecting the past to the present. Echoes of myth, ornament, commerce, and desire blow through, forming suspended compositions that feel both strangely familiar and suspended in time.
