Egghead ? – 2025

Mixed media sculpture. Bisque doll’s shoulders., Australian Emu egg, South African Porcupine quill, wooden box sealed by 4 Terrazzo x tiles, metal key, painted metal key-hole escutcheon plate, 4-tapered plastic extrusion, 8 brass screws. H41 x W24 x D13.5 cm

An emu-headed anthropomorphic bust adorned with a porcupine quill protruding from its head. The fleshy upper arms and torso indicate a human type but the grey (proportionate) egghead is decidedly not human.

In this embarrassing age of keypad pirouetting, disinformation, rabbit-hole conspiracy theorists, nano-second attention spans and widespread assumption of entitlement – have we become proverbial social ‘eggheads’?

The bust with its single shaft antenna, is placed on a wooden box plinth which sports a keyhole at one end with a key protruding from it . However all is not as it seems: the key is reversed and the implication is that we (the viewer/s) are on the inside of this sculpture’s world, and by turning the key we just may be able to get out.

The sculpture is placed on yet a secondary plinth, a block of Coachwood.