Oxford, U.K.
Daphne Wright’s unfired clay, plaster, and jesmonite sculptures are a particularly inspired choice for the latest edition of Ashmolean NOW, a series of exhibitions showcasing contemporary responses to the museum’s historical collections. In “Deep-Rooted Things” (on view through February 8, 2026), the bleached ethereality of her work resonates with the sculptures in the Cast Gallery, which she used
as a reference point. A cast of the surviving fragments of a metope from the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, showing a young Hercules defeating the Nemean Lion, offers an introduction to Wright’s thematic concerns, creating a perfect link to the show’s centerpiece, Sons and Couch (2025). In this poignant rendering of her two sons on the cusp of adulthood, she propels the subject of the young adult male, which frequently appears in Greek and Roman sculpture, into the 21st century.
Sons and Couch continues a series of casts that Wright began in 2011 to explore various stages in the boys’ development. Here, she captures the young men in a moment of repose. One jesmonite figure reclines on a sofa, the other on the floor—a private, familiar scene of languid adolescence. They have now reached a crucial stage in life, primed for its challenges (much like Hercules facing the lion in the first of his Labors), yet the attitude of their response is wholly contemporary. The floor-bound figure inclines his head vacuously downward, as if glued to a mobile phone, barely noticing that his hand is empty; the other stretches across the sofa, seemingly asleep. Bald, with closed eyes, these ashen figures devoid of personality make for an unnerving encounter. The precise detailing of the sheet draped over the sofa, the boys’ t-shirts and underpants, and the creases in the soles of their feet only serve to heighten the sense of unease.
Surrounding works create a kind of commentary around this central tableau. The doorless Fridge Still Life (2021) divulges a chicken, a bottle, and five asparagus spears. A vase of drooping flowers on top nods to Rachel Ruysch’s A ‘Forest Floor’ Still Life of Flowers (1687), from the Ashmolean’s collection, which is displayed nearby. Multiple wall-mounted Plates (2019), made by pressing clay between two plates, continue the theme of domesticity. The scenario is eerie and lifeless, as if all the objects in the gallery were relics frozen in time and space. Groups of wall-mounted sculptures—Pet Rodents and Rabbits (2019), Pet Amphibians and Reptiles (2019), Dogs: Utility, Toy, Hound, Terrier (2025), and Butterflies (2025)—depict animals taken from the posters that once adorned the bedrooms of Wright’s children. Created in low-relief, these groupings function as a kind of frieze around the freestanding sculptures, further emphasizing the notion of a petrified space.
Ugg (2019), with 18 objects placed on wall-mounted shelves, is composed like a museological display. The ensemble echoes numerous installations of ancient artifacts and vessels at the Ashmolean, while the amorphous forms resemble an artist’s collection of maquettes, body parts, even an assortment of cryptic biomorphic interactions. Either way, the role of collecting has its roots in childhood, as fodder for the imagination. It is a way of understanding the world, creating order, and expressing preference. In fact, Ugg was inspired by small plastic figures (Moshi Monsters) collected by one of Wright’s sons when he was a child. The work’s potential, however, lies in its very amorphousness—the notion that its 18 components could mutate to become something else entirely, defying any interpretation imposed on them.
In Wright’s colorless, spectral ensembles, each object has an equal status within the ritual of daily
life. Her sons are no more significant than the sofa and floor that support them; the food in the fridge, though indicative of essential sustenance, of no higher value than the unit that contains it. Throughout Wright’s practice, her objects, though exquisitely rendered, appear unfinished, as if halted en route to a final stage of being. “Deep-Rooted Things” is a profound reflection on the themes of domesticity, family, and the cycle of life and death. Sons and Couch, in particular, resulted from a long process of negotiation between the artist and her sons, whose permission was required for its making. The final piece, so still, intimate, and revealing, is a brave act that renders the personal universal.
