Two Steps Forward and One to the Side

Pliny said we make art to remember what we have lost. What is it we have lost? The world of childhood when we took our buckets and spades to the beach? The seaside postcards with always a crab pinching a fat bottom? The fear that a toe would be grabbed as we paddled? Climate breakdown is a terrifying enough prospect, faced more easily with an attitude of creative fun. In Two Steps Forward and One to the Side the artist wears clothing constructed of mattress ticking fabric. The body of the crab is carried on her head with her face somewhat obscured by the claws. The crab has been appropriated, perhaps from Van Gogh's painting of a crab on its back, but also purely from the natural world, to create a hand made art work. The artist, an Anglo-Scottish woman emulates the long tradition of stitching by women in these islands. Two Steps Forward and One to the Side is humourous as well as dissonant in the way it connects animals and humans. The viewer laughs at the strange performance video-ed in the street, amongst parked cars. We are asked to readjust our thoughts.