In “DEUCE!”, language and object continuously fold into one another. A word becomes an image, an image becomes an object, an object becomes a word. The exhibition presents the intertwining relationship between image and word; object and function. Earthy and Reynolds explore the object stripped back to its core, through the lens of rhyme, semantics and word-association.

The two artists both work instinctively, but almost in reverse to one another - Earthy starts with the object, dismantling the semantics surrounding it, and plays a word association game with the viewer. Contrastingly, Reynolds starts with the semantics, the flowery words and stories themselves, and breaks them down to arrive at the brutal core of the object.

Both artists displace the object from its original context - the object is decapitated from its function, and it becomes a symbol of its own materiality, a thing. A representation of a rhyme, an image, a concept. Reduced to relics of what they once were, they now possess a sense of decontextualisation of function and mechanism. Reynolds uses the object almost as a visual translator of rhyme. He looks predominantly at the 18th century nursery rhyme, Oranges and Lemons, and the twelve bells of London.

A recurring theme in Reynolds’ work seems to be the obsolete, the dying art, the forgotten mechanisms, that have since been replaced by newer technology or newer ways of thinking and consuming. Here, bells, pigeon spikes and other familiar forms become recurring motifs, hovering between the poetic, the ornamental, and the functional. The objects are laden with the residue of the words that describe them, whilst their physical presence begins to disrupt and contradict the language surrounding them. The objects almost act as relics, not only of their functionality, but also of what they symbolise. Earthy enters a game with the viewer. Everyday objects become surfaces for a visual game of association. She looks at the brand of the object, often the only written word in sight, and marries the word to an image unrelated to the function.

UTOPIA. DOLPHIN.

Earthy invites the viewer to decode the visual language she uses. The function of the objects she uses is to hold and to cover, or protect. Some of these items are seen by everyone, everyday, but they remain nearly invisible. She takes these familiar objects and combines them with unexpected imagery, disrupting our perception of them. Earthy creates a new relationship which allows the viewer to cascade into endless folds of meaning between image and object.

What came first, the toilet paper dispenser or the dolphin?