Chris James
Books, Films, Art & Photography
Sculpture
Sculpture
Trapped by Poetry (2013)
Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath met at Cambridge University. They were introduced by my uncle, the historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown, who, like Plath, was a Fulbright Scholar and fellow American. This sculpture tries to depict the relationship between Hughes and Plath – one a dominating, subjugating, overpowering man, the other a depressive, introspective, melancholy woman, trapped by her partner in poetry and eventually driven to suicide.
Quote under Plath:
I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out – looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
Quote under Hughes:
My last sight of you alive,
Burning your last letter to me…
Yet with that strange smile,
As if you had meant something quite different.
— from an abandoned version of his poem ‘Last Letter’
Eileen, or, Eye-Line (2013)
This wire sculpture only makes sense when looked at from a specific vantage point. The hanging wire shapes on four separate planes come together there to realise the ample proportions of the lovely Eileen, who puts Kim Kardashian to shame.
Bikini Line (2010)
Self-explanatory if you look carefully.
Dodo (2014)
I originally made this as a birthday present for Andrew Lanyon. He later used it in his book and exhibition, The Only Non-slip Dodo Mat in the World.
Swiss Army Knife of Hand Gestures, 2018
This was created for the Andrew Lanyon exhibition, Nature’s Laboratory. It’s made of a snooker cue sharpener, spectacle stems and hands made of plasticine painted with gold enamel.
