Dream or Nightmare
Sculpture by Sally De Courcy (United-Kingdom)

An autobiographical work of an immunocompromised medically retired doctor and artist during the COVID19 pandemic, reflecting the mixed identity as both observer and participant, medical practitioner and patient living in isolation. As the artist rebuilt herself piecemeal, so the sculpture evolved using repeated objects that relate to the pandemic revealing a narrative. Femurs referencing mortality are combined with driftwood - although different both are vestigial remains and look like bone. Driftwood symbolises feeling beached (stranded) and like the virus returns in waves. Surreal faces represent feeling depersonalised during isolation, the arms the inability to embrace, and bats the vector of Covid19 invade the sculpture. Bandages binding the work, are symbolic of Florence Nightingale and the Nightingale hospitals and reference the artist's mixed identity as doctor/ patient. The work mixes identity-decorative yet revealing the darker aspects of the pandemic, oscillating between dream and nightmare.

Exhibited at Espacio Gallery London in September 2020. Currently being exhibited at Help exhibition, International Association of Visual Artist online exhibition, Florence. Will be exhibiting at MIixed Identities exhibition, Canvas art fair, line contemporary art space, London from December 3 2022 January 13, 2021.

Jesmonite, Bandages, cast driftwood, bones, objects

Mould Making and Carving