Getting Big Sculpture 2017

Getting Big consists of 16 toddlers, sculpted from paper composite, standing precariously on top of stools. Attached to each of their heads are groups of constructed objects: ambiguous shapes, architectural forms, and heads of animals, cartoon figures and people.

The toddlers are distributed so as to allow viewers to walk around them, with narrative potentials – nostalgias, beliefs, fears, dreams, desires – located both in the figures, individually, and in the work as a whole. Getting Big is somewhat disquieting, as the crowning objects are strangely out of place. Collectively, the work generates a primitive rhythm that suggests a pre-linguistic understanding of the world. The toddlers are in state of being that is defined by the belief that anything can happen, and the installation lends to the gallery space a sense that reality is blending with fiction. The viewer is invited into an absurd, dreamlike world.

But Getting Big is also playful and deliberately suggestive of multiple interpretations. It has a primal energy – arising from its bright colours, bold brush strokes and expressive forms – which evokes the spontaneity of the creative process and encourages the viewer to let go and experience the work intuitively rather than through constructed meanings.