Chased Losses

Forgetting and remembering, inheritance, dependency, and moving away are all experiences unpinned with care and duty throughout Sean Edwards’ practice. Using intricate and labourintensive forms of sculpture, collage and (most recently for this exhibition) digital modelling, his detailed work focuses on small moments of the ever day, and expresses value in repetition and routine. Edwards draws on recollections of his family and childhood growing up on a large public housing estate in Wales in the 1980s. His multi-disciplinary practice compiles autobiographical fragments alongside shared social narratives. He poetically conveys the atmosphere, texture and sensibility of neglected people and places, with a subtle political imagination that suggests paths out of an endless cycle of suppressed opportunity.

In this exhibition, Edwards specifically references such a moment from his youth. These works consider inherited absences and subtleties of character passed down through generations, whether through genetic or psychological disposition. Edwards returns to a profound visual memory of his grandfather throwing away his father’s darts trophies in a black bin bag, recalling the unease and upset caused by this abrupt removal of such personal objects symbolic of skill and achievement. The trophies (comprising shields and plinths with figurines) are represented in a grainy square snapshot from the 1980s, rephotographed on the artist’s studio wall, a sparse white workspace, removed from the warmth of the family home (Dream of Him (2010).