Good Breeding - final countdown

Today, (perhaps tomorrow, feral children dependent) I am going to my studio to check on my barrel salted duckies, one of the three pieces exhibited in Sedition. Its a tense and crucial exhibitionready check up.

I say duckies colloquially, in fact the birds used are a Grouse, Wigeon, Wood Pigeon and a Partridge all raised and hunted within 50 miles of the exhibition. The piece Good Breeding (domestic ornament) is a revisitation of a previously exhibited and sold piece, recontextualising it in what could be considered a 'local' situation; taking into consideration concerns locally such as sustainable land management, local food, indigenous industries and artificial presentation of the landscape for public consumption. In some ways the previous version of the work, (made in 2008 and exhibited in the SCOPE london art fair) wasn't unaware of these concerns, but I had underestimated there potency and resonance with the viewer.

In its initial exposure in a critique context, Robert Williams

my then tutor and still highly respected fellow artist referred to the 3 dead ducks flying up the wall as a 'one line joke' - and there is no denying the continuing humour of the work. However, I think the humour belies a quiet intensity, the piece is esthetically rigorous and not repulsive to view, however it is constructed by completely reconfiguring the game bird carcass's to mirror the facimily of flying ducks so iconic to english'ness. This is a very intensive and immersive process, even for a carnivorous chef familiar with culinary manipulation.

The salt so essential to the preservation process then clings to the wings and any incidental feathers that escaped plucking, taking on the appearance of a heavy frost, the uniformity of colour again sanitizing the fleshy reality of the piece. One irony of the piece is the expectation of repulsion by the viewer, who in a different context - a restaurant or high end supermarket advert would be encouraged to 'desire' the birds, who would be laid out as a dish for consumption becoming both sustenance and a mark of status (an interesting parallel to the consumption of Art).

Each duckie is currently in its own separate salt filled box, stretched around an armature slowly dehydrating and preserving, collection by the gallery is on the 13th ready for install in the show and by virtue of the methods requirements (and associated sanitary sensibility) I have yet to check its is all going to plan. Frankly I am not sure what could go wrong, all the birds were fresh so they do not have the embodied risk of using road kill and the tendency to infestation, from the outside of the box they are behaving as expected - liquids transitioning to the slowly colouring salt, the armatures are well made and backs pre-prepared for wall mounting, but until I am completely sure then I'll be in doubt and still be preparing for plan B...