Fecund Grayling Pink Nymph was originally made as centrepiece for artist run dinner The Amber Room at Matts Gallery, to dispense mint imperials for dinner guests to extract at the end of the meal.
Based on the idea of a colony of oysters, purged by guests for their precious interiors, the pearls have been replaced by the aptly named mint imperial. The craggy, weed supporting, grotesque centrepiece for mint imperials stands in resistance to imperialism in all its hard and soft forms - its inhabitants thriving in opposition to hostile practices of domination and exploitation.
The suspended shells are entwined with Buddleia stems preserved in wax and coated in protective Jesmonite shells. Found growing prolifically from cracks in pavement and broken walls, the flowers of the butterfly bush are the epitome of survival experts.