Table nr 21, uprooted drowning by sonia e barrett

sonia e barrett

Table nr 21, uprooted drowning, 2013

wood and roots

115 x 240 x 115 cm

This table is made of roots and legs. The joinery is exposed. In making this work I was thinking about drowning, swimming, kicking into and out of life. I chose to work with this table top because of the inlay-ed cross section on the top of the table. An inlay is a technique whereby a thin layer of very beautiful valuable wood is lain like a skin over some more ordinary wood. The pieces have been fitted together to look like they are a cross section of the entire tree. as if the whole table top is a complete cross section of a tree. This lie and the loss of the cross section were fascinating to me. This work is about loos attempts to reconstruct what was the idea of roots and what we have cut off and cannot really rejoin. In many ways this is a visualization of an oral attempt to reconstruct a family tree. o suggest the human. Some parts are "natural" others highly embellished and individuated, others split beyond recognition but pushed together anyhow. The rush of life is here in that the work is forever birthing itself. The inlay conveys the energy the water that is pulled out of the soil and up into the sky it is like a graphic suck. It's connection with the ground in which it grew is made visible. The legs are in pairs to suggest the human. The plant is also evident in the roots and the worked wood has plat fronds carved into it. The lions feet introduce the animal and as a table it functions as an object . The work hovers between these definitions. In an attempt to collapse the mammal the human the plant and the object another life form has emerged a amphibious one many see a jelly fish. This work was first shown at the Tod de Ligny Museum of the Sea in Sicily. I was thinking of people as flotsam or driftwood. This table has a kind of family shield or crest engraved on it. Crests are a sign of social standing of being securely rooted in a geography or family history. They are also signs of social mobility often purchased by people who are aspirational or "moving up"in the worlds socially. It is interesting to think of the aspirations of contemporary refugees who attempt to cross the water in the context of this work. The Tor de ligny is a,kind of sea fort that was used to secure the sea as a property. In this way this was an excellent situation for this work.

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