This artwork is informed by recollections of an ancient marble statue of the Ephresian Artemis I saw at the Vatican Museum which shows the goddess of fertility adorned with what are thought to be either many breasts or bulls’ testicles.

The vessel is coiled and each modelled head is applied as if decoratively, open-mouthed in a silent shout reflecting the angst that emerges with our separation from nature. The head in this form is a recurring motif which stems from my first encounter with Caravaggio’s Head of Medusa, and can also be reflected in Munch’s Scream. This expression embodies what I believe to be a response to existential questions and relevant in the current crisis of our Anthropocene age.

Also influenced by Benin bronzes which I first came across at the Museum of Mankind before it was moved from behind the Royal Academy to the British Museum in Holborn, the heads are partly modelled on my own head the artist maker, as in Michelangelo’s portrait of himself in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

The vase could be taken for a funerary urn and reflects my fascination for archaeology and in particular artefacts of Etruscan and Egyptian origin. I have used terracotta clay for its fragility in its fashioned form notwithstanding the immense durability as a mineral material. the piece belongs to the past in inspiration as much as it does to the future in its prescience.