Idol with handle

'My work has always been about translation, passing a subject though various processes on the way to a fixed or permanent state, with each different material influencing the creation of new forms'.
Ricky Swallow, 2011

Best known as a realist sculptor who has worked in cardboard and, more recently, bronze, Ricky Swallow gained acclaim in the early 2000s for intricate wood carvings that reimagined the traditions of the still life genre while also referencing popular culture and personal narratives. Prior and concurrently, Swallow made a body of work that utilised the forms of retro sound technology – turntables and beatboxes. Idol with handle is a bronze replica of an 80s-style portable radio that sits atop a thick slab of wood. In rendering this inanimate object in detail by hand, Swallow transforms something seemingly mundane into an artefact, an object of reverence, from another time. This act of material translation becomes a way to examine how meaning is preserved within objects – their memories, allegories, and relationship to time.