Gallery FUMI is delighted to present The Moon’s Daughter is a Pearl - a solo presentation by Emma Witter in our lower ground floor space.
Titled after a poem by Anna Souter, this exhibition marks the London-based artist's first solo presentation at the gallery, with beautiful new works transversing the lines between the celestial and natural; the forgotten and re-discovered. Given new life, Witter’s works are intricately modelled with salvaged oyster shells, bones, objects found at flea markets, and other remnants, and embalmed with precious metals using the delicate, subaqueous process of electro-forming.
With unusual chemical combinations creating tones ranging from blushed raspberry to vibrant gold and deep gunmetal, the works are romantic, alchemical, and richly textural - like tokens from a sunken treasure chest.
A testament to collaboration, these works bring together the skills of farmers, chefs, artisans, and the artist to transform humble materials into a surreal celebration of local agriculture, craft and community.
The moon’s daughter is a pearl:
A grain of sand turned to a jewel, made glossy by moonlight on a mattress of flesh. On clear nights she glitters on the sea’s black mirror, mother meeting daughter in reflections and refractions. A relationship spun out like a cobweb turned to stars in the first autumn frost.
Pearl and moon-mother light the way for trawlers, raking the seabed where her sisters lie sleeping. Each pearl a smooth imitation of her mother’s care-marked face. Pulled from snags of barnacled coral, a tooth to be exchanged for coins and digital derivatives, hoisted high on crowns, and pinned to cheap earrings on plastic backings. Pearl becomes prize.
Mother sings to her sleeping daughters, tales of arduous travels and sinuous serpents and sea anemones collected in tanks, laid out like brooches in a rich woman’s jewellery box. She tells of obsessions and collections, of greed and veneration, of taking without giving. Pearl children listen eagerly, hard moony shells longing for tenderness.
Moon sighs as she sings, melodious stories of inharmonious love slipping from her hard cracked mouth, her lips parting like the double shell of an oyster.
Mother-of-pearl, inlaid on a spoon, touching a wet red tongue.
The moon in your mouth, resting on a fleshy bed.
By Anna Souter
