Man & Wife (2023)

Found metal, wood. Rust flakes.

88 x 36 x 31cm

A garden fork unearthed on an overgrown allotment in Somerset and a spade discovered near the Taff in Cardiff, after high flood water.

These humble implements, brought to mind my grandparents.  Agricultural people born counties apart, who met and lived in very different times to these.

Women’s rights were still in their infancy in 1927, when they were wed. The title of the piece alludes to the traditional marriage service wording, where the wife was still commonly seen as property to be handed by her father to another man, rather than an equal in status to her new husband.

Both rusting and at the end of their life, the fork’s tines are still sharp. Her handle has suffered a fracture, and half is lost. The spade cannot stand upright without her.