The museum itself interests Frances Upritchard. She absorbs countless details, objects, fabrics, jewels and furnishings. Some of these reappear in the textures and characters of the creatures she makes, such as in the grinning hockey sticks of Jealous Saboteurs.
The real art in Upritchard’s constructions is her ability to draw out the deviant humanity in inanimate things and the object-like qualities of the living. Upritchard has said, ‘I like the idea that some aliens came down to earth and took things away but everything got mixed up on the journey back.’ Essential to this feeling of disorientation is that her objects are all made by hand. Upritchard’s reanimation of the museum happens through the tactile activity of her hands, as she lends objects a metaphoric and literal new skin.
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