London
Jodie Carey has a longstanding relationship with Edel Assanti and knows the gallery space well. She has talked in the past about the quality of the natural light in that space: how it falls from skylight windows and illuminates works in a gentle abundance from above. It is unusual to find so much natural light in a small central London gallery, and Carey uses it to her advantage.
In the site-specific installation Guard (on view through August 30, 2024), Carey occupies the space with a surprising lightness of touch. Jesmonite sculptures mounted on steel supports, 150 of them, stretch across both ground-floor galleries, and it requires considerable care to walk among them. That care heightens the experience, bringing the moment of encounter to the fore. Though each sculpture is different, all are made using Carey’s unique process of earth-casting. In the past, she employed simple planks of salvaged timber to make a rudimentary mold in the earth that she then filled with plaster, as was the case in Earthcasts (2017), when 50 vertical sculptures occupied the gallery.
Her work is now more complex, even if the processes remain fundamentally simple. In Guard, the number of sculptures has increased threefold, a hugely labor-intensive task in itself. Each sculpture is made by wrapping plants with cloth and thread, everything bound together before the bundle is pressed into the surface of the earth, which is then filled with Jesmonite. The imprint of flowers and other plant material is important because Carey considers flora to be linked to cultural identity, as well as synonymous with war—think of the red poppies of World War II or the sunflowers of solidarity with Ukraine. The persistence of plants, perhaps weeds pushing through pavement, is a reminder of the stubbornness of all life and the desire for survival. At the same time, their fragility also gestures to the frailty of human life. In the midst of Guard, the viewer is never alone. The sculptures take on a figurative quality because of their size and demeanor. Some stand in isolation, seeming to rise obstinately from the floor, pressed against a wall at the edge of the room, silent in their solitude. Others are grouped together, sometimes sociably, sometimes less so. Tightknit groups of three or four huddle together as if sharing intimate conversations. Larger groups spread out, allowing room for visitors to join the conversation.
Each earth-cast sculpture is unique. Smooth, rough, hollow, broken, devoid of added color—every surface has a story to tell and an individual patina, which focuses attention on texture and subtle variations. The fabric and thread binding suggests a brokenness that has been patched up and mended, but is still healing. The evidence of organic material such as leaves, flowers, stones, and roots lends a poignancy to these fragile forms that together become monumental, but separately explore ideas of impermanence, decay, and death. With their rough, stained surfaces, it is as if they might return to the earth at any time. Giving form to entropic process, Carey’s sculptures also act as sentinels of time and space, protectors of life that also acknowledge its inevitable precariousness. A material memory of what has been, evoking shrouded bodies, Guard is perhaps a reminder of humankind’s responsibility to itself and the natural world. It is certainly an occasion for reflection.
