Hybrid

Hybrid
1997

Media: wood, steel, leather, hay and mixed media, 

Size: 1550 x 1700 x 800mm, (vertical element), 2450 x 570 x 640mm (horizontal element), 

Exhibited:

2013 – Unruly Objects (one-person exhibition), Cornerstone Gallery and Arts Centre, Didcot, Oxfordshire.

2010 – New Hybrids (commission) part of Oxford Brookes Cultural Olympiad, Richard Hamilton Building, Oxford.

2008 – Locations (one-person exhibition), OVADA, Oxford. 

1997 – “…from the institution." (one-person exhibition), Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery.

About this work:

As with earlier works, the concept of the illogical object is further developed through the large two-part sculpture Hybrid (1997). In this work, a mis-match of both object and institutional references are made explicit—particularly by its title. Again, as a multi-part work, Hybrid is placed in the gallery space—like Mother—in such a way as to be read in a semi-animated manner and has been fabricated by hand. It appears to be made from parts—or at least adaptations—of other objects from diverse and incompatible contexts.  One of the sculpture’s two main sections stands on four legs. Predominantly made from wood, leather and steel, this section most closely resembles a piece of gymnasium equipment—a pommel horse—and yet it also structurally evokes the folding mechanism of an ironing board. However, trying to pin-down this sculptural object to either function is a futile act. The hoops bolted to the top of the sculpture face the wrong direction for a pommel horse and the oversized rack at the back of its elevated platform, which roughly sits at shoulder level, does not contain the expected iron—a piece of domestic equipment. Instead it is stuffed with an abundance of hay, as though ready to feed livestock. A closer inspection of Hybrid’s construction, reveals that the feet of its four criss-crossed legs are shod in shiny black steel, and it is attached to a rope, which appears to have become un-tethered from a large iron hook attached to the gallery wall. More of the same rope can be seen attached to two stainless steel rings that hang loosely from one end of the second part of the sculpture. This part, which sits low to the ground is comprised of two parallel wooden rocking arcs banded on their curved edges by more black, gloss steel and joined by welded steel bars on which robust leather straps are attached. The points of reference of this second object are less immediate, although it does bear vague resemblance to a child’s seesaw. 

In its entirety Hybrid invites and encourages those experiencing the sculpture to try to unravel its meaning and purpose. The material and institutional signifiers are diverse, simultaneously hybridising references to the gymnasium, playground, stable and home. In similar ways to Mother, the spatial and object dynamics brought about by curatorial placement also bring about a suggested narrative of instability. It is possible to imagine placing one part of Hybrid on top of the other—in fact they could technically and physically fit together. But the combination would make a bizarre rocking horse.. However, the physical separation of the two sections, alongside the broken connection between the ‘headless horse’ and tethering hook suggests something wild and unpredictable in progress. In the context of the exhibition “from the institution...” and in close proximity to From the Dayroom and Cuckoo, Hybrid could be quite literally ‘off its rocker’.