Frieze Sculpture
Regents Park 2019

Edel Assanti is pleased to announce Jodie Carey’s work Cord will be featured in the 2019 edition of the Frieze Sculpture Park. Cord is a three metre high bronze work, anchored to the ground by a small concrete base.

Carey creates Cord through a technique she refers to as earthcasting: the artist buries a length of thick rope in the ground, using the space left once it has been excavated as a rudimentary mould, into which she pours bronze. When the liquid metal is poured into the raw earth, the soil cracks instantly as the bronze meets the earth’s moisture. Once it has been dug up, the sculpture memorialises the path of the metal as it spurted through the soil in vein-like tributaries.

Cord conceptually follows Carey’s site-specific commission for her acclaimed 2018 exhibition at Foundling Museum, in which she produced a floor to ceiling bronze sculpture using the same technique. This body of work is inspired by the Foundling Museum’s unique story of maternal love, loss and separation – the title Cord referencing the unbreakable bond between mother and child.

Carey’s recent practice reconsiders what constitutes a monument, asking how material can convey the true idiosyncratic experience of memory. Despite being materially strong, Cord has a brittle, fragile appearance. It seeks to make visible the fragility of relationships that are so fundamental to human existence, questioning whether such bonds can ever be broken.