My inspiration for this work comes from an idea of nostalgia about childhood, and a presentation of a collection. I collected different types of second hand toys from different places. Some are from my childhood, some are found, all the little plastic ones belonged to a little girl who sold them on Bricklane market, and the older ones I found in different markets in London and Germany.
They all belong to different memories and different times. This collection is a bit of a constructed memory, a kind of an absurd display, referring kitsch and the mass-produced object, but also mixed with something more unique and beautiful that embodies a more “authentic” toy. Some are broken, slightly transformed or weird, creating ‘tension’ between what is supposed to be a cute object, and something more scary emanating from the transformation, the stillness, or the fact that it is broken.
Détail of Whatever (Ice Cream Memory)
I added plaster on the wooden structure, giving an impression of a fake snow in a kind of chalet decor style, suggestive kitsch postcards. The snow also looks like an ice cream, as it was applied to the wood in the same way as icing a cake. I like this idea of Christmas feeling, all be it a plastic one.
I like the different attitudes represented by the toys: they are all standing still in a mood, most of them with happy faces, very cliché. Some of them are angry, some look bored, and others are very roughly made so they look scary instead of being cute.
I didn’t really play or create many stories between them, and I just lined them up like a trophee, a collection. On the wall, above some of them, I fixed some handmade resin tears and painted dry flowers from a pot-pourri.
This work is also about the difficulty of working: I put the toys on a stretcher, so they are like a compromise of a painting. Toys also represent the fun and play instead of work.
The snow freezes the toys in a particular time, as stuff one puts in the freezer to preserve it as long as possible. Repetition and the process of collection are also referring to a refusal of change, time passing and death, and a need of possessing to fill a void. Overall, this work is situated between nostalgia and a kind of irony, mixing the authentic and the plastic, toys and wood, plaster and fake snow spray, handmade and mass produced…creating an ambiguity between the authentic and the made up, memory, absurdity, and kitsch.
