! Littlewhitehead: Humour ballon

littlewhitehead

Sentient Orbs, 2009, Shoes, chinos, sweater, balloons, wire, stuffing, Approx 250 x 200 x 200 cm

Hailing from Glasgow, littlewhitehead take their inspiration from the city’s working class and post-industrial culture. Their darkly humorous sculptures provocatively explore the phenomenon of violence as an increasingly normalised means to identity and community. It Happened In The Corner... is an installation of a gang of hoodies congregated in ominous thug-pack stance. In their presence, the viewer is made a complicit witness or bystander to banal terror, while the predators are similarly made victims, eerily silenced and stilled, ever relegated to the corner: ostracising and punitive, a haunting site of Blair Witch-cycle urban-legend monstrosity.

“Within our work there is a strong connection between the reality that surrounds us and some kind of escapism to a made-up world,” littlewhitehead explain. “This made-up world is the construct of a dialogue between the two of us, which infuses scenes from an encyclopaedic range of references, from video nasties, to current events, and subconscious musings. It is in that world, unlike the one we actually inhabit, where we can fulfil these sinister desires.” Sentient Orbs pictures a child rising to the ceiling, subsumed by a bouquet of balloons, transferring the delights of pleasure and kindness to suggestions of greed and malice.