Nipple - Symbol - 7, 2000

Three panels containing an isolated image / symbol / sign.

1. A photo-mechanical image of an organic object fundamental to mammalian life,
2. A painterly creation with mystical, early historic, totemic overtones,

3. An intellectually conceived and understood sign – a quantifying Arabic numeral.

Reading left to right through the three panels, the nipple bursts outwards from its two-dimensional representation as it progresses to the top-right corner, where it dissolves into the flat surface of the composition, only to be found again embedded in the left-hand page, ready to continue its cycle of acquiring the third dimension.

In relation to this physical object is an imprint of an abstract concept – 7, which also takes solid form as it passes from left to right. To acquire the third dimension in the right-hand panel, the nipple and the 7 pass through the mysterious, central symbol which itself expands in character into the wooden framework encompassing the whole episode until its recurring denouement on the very right-hand edge.

The paper images were made in Loughborough in 1994; the wooden frame was appropriated from an old gate, the narrative created in Normandy in 1997, and the final assemblage put together in the Pas de Calais in 2000.