Jodie Carey’s sculptures are overpowering and overwhelming to me due to their size and structure. Artist explores themes of memory and death and artist signifies these notions in her work in a sentimental and melancholic way. One of artist’s works ‘Untitled Chandeliers’ was made from vacuum cleaner dust which represents all that remains of the body after we have passed away. Carey says: “Hoover dust is the detritus of everyday life. If you die tomorrow, all that would be left of you would be in your Hoover.”
‘Untitled Monument’ is another infamous work by Carey: a wedding cake made of cast human bones, which refers to couple’s hopes for the future. Baroque excessive and decorative style of works gives them intensity and at the same time fragility. Materials play crucial role in order to bring her works to life and Carey often makes references to physicality of human body by using bones or blood. Another means of suggesting decay and passing away that artist uses is aroma.
The great quality of craftsmanship is displayed in Carey’s works of art, which suggests labor intensity in their construction. This is artist’s way to confront the viewer with the meaning of being human. By transforming ordinary material into the beautiful and extravagant work Carey questions the way we look at the world and challenges viewer to depict beauty in ugliness.

text by Anny Baranova

(all images courtesy of the artist )