We are so proud to host Penny’s first major retrospective show. Cataloguing over three decades of work and showcasing a common thread connecting each piece to one another. ‘Pecking Order’ investigates the themes of lost childhood, nostalgia and memory, in addition to concepts based on anthropomorphism. This body of work focuses mainly on cherished possessions around the home, how these may reflect a person’s character, bear physical traces, or reveal the identity of their owner.
Penny says:
“My subjects are often tired or abandoned, broken or forgotten and they generate empathy within me. I set to work with the aim of recycling, rebuilding and rejuvenating, to form new identities. A table leg once used as target practice for golf putting boasts a new life as a dog’s leg on a dining room cabinet, within a ‘cabinet’ or glazed box frame. (‘Upcycled Dog’) An old chicken shed is transformed into a chicken, old toys become alive once more as protagonists in stage sets and narratives, and bits and bobs that have fallen off ‘stuff’ and stuck in the back of a drawer somewhere, are pulled out, celebrated, and put on a pedestal for people to take notice.”
