'Fragments of Desire', the title of this installation, speaks to the intimate relationship between the collector and the collected, viewer and viewed, that formed the basis of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Wunderkammern (“Cabinets of Curiosities”). Most popular in pre-Enlightenment Europe these early, private museums featured objects sourced from the natural world (Naturalia), from foreign cultures (Exotica), as well as those objects created expressly for the collection (Artefacta).

In Fragments of Desire ‘the Gaze’1 of the viewer is attracted to tiny, ultra-bright LED lights, a suspended flight of circling, nocturnal ‘moths’ and wall-mounted shelves laden with half-hidden artifacts; the strange and wondrous. Glass lidded containers emit an enigmatic blue glow or display bone-like fragments of casting moulds—recovered castoffs of the metalsmith’s craft—and, in making precious the earthly and urbane, reference Medieval reliquaries. A number of the created artifacts employ optical anamorphosis as a method for recontextualising familiar imagery. An anamorphic image is a deformed image that appears in its true shape when viewed in some unconventional way. Clarity comes at a price. Notions of accessibility and transgression are raised by the presence of two six-foot tall aluminum ladders. Is the installation process complete and are we permitted to enter the exhibition; is the work available for viewing? Are the ladders provided as tools for the viewers to use in order to elevate themselves, peel back the layers of content and gain insight or are they intended to be read as part of the artwork and only to be considered conceptually?

The desire to circulate throughout the gallery space and take up specific positions is encouraged with the advantage of new viewpoints and sightlines leading to visual legibility and an enhanced reading of the work. Approaching the centrally located ‘viewing device’ the observer sees flashes of light reflected from the Scotchlite-coated moths. As with astronomical parallax one is rewarded for having moved to a new vantage point. The viewer undergoes a somewhat alchemical transmutation of desire, experience and understanding not unlike that provided to the craftsperson through the accumulation of skill delivered by the relationship with their chosen material(s). As a metalsmith I am attracted to the materials, techniques, traditions and history of the medium. I find the experience of making objects leads to subsequent observations regarding their use in a broader context and results in the desire to offer a novel, if somewhat personal, viewpoint.