Not everyone looks at safety pins, zippers, and cigarette butts as art materials, but British artist Ann Carrington sees amazing things in the everyday.
Photography by Mark Proctor (crown) and Marcus Sorrento (queen)
“All objects are saturated with cultural meaning,” she says. “Mundane objects like knives, gloves, shoes, shells, and tin cans come with their own ready-made histories.”
Sometimes she reuses discarded objects, like tin cans to create a brace of fish; other times she re-envisions industrial materials, like upholstery nails. Levi Strauss & Co., Clarks, and Mercury Telephones all have commissioned works made from their own factory materials.
Before she starts on a piece, Carrington, 45, creates a “visual diary” where she collects “any image that takes my fancy.” For some pieces, the title comes first. Pirate Radio was a sculpture of a radio made from real skulls and crossbones, gathered from butchers near her home in Broadstairs.
Other times, the materials trigger the form, as in Tusk. To Carrington, ivory-handled knives suggested elephant tusks: “We use knives in much the
same way as an elephant uses its tusks … I felt I had returned the knives to their rightful owners in a cyclical story.”
Her recent work is an homage to classic British iconography. Instead of paint, she uses needles, pins, and zippers, or pearlescent buttons, a nod to the Cockney “Pearly” kings and queens.
But just because she loves using buttons, dressmaking pins, and tailor’s chalk doesn’t mean Carrington can’t wield heavy-duty machinery. Her favorite tool is a Makita sabre saw, one step down from a chainsaw, that “cuts through huge chunks of wood like butter.”
Working with so many diverse materials, she is constantly learning new skills. “It’s hard work working the way I do, as each new sculpture involves materials I have not worked with before and often there is no precedent — so I can’t consult a guidebook!”
—Arwen O’Reilly Griffith
>> Carrington’s sculptures: anncarrington.co.uk
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