Jessica Joslin – Bones and Brass

Posted by on November 12th,2006

Carina the cat

Mr Craiger redirected my attention to the terribly unique work of Jessica Joslin – delicate yet playful macabre sculptures of bones, brass, glass, glove leather and antiques. There is most certainly a Victorian feeling from looking at these sculptures – the Victorians had such interests in life and death, in biology and anatomy, and just as they sought to create lifelike forms in their automatons, so they sought to understand the ‘gears and drives’ of real living things. Here then are animals posing as in life but in a peculiar half state between dead and mechanical – all too easily, I could imagine them prancing with clicky-clacky life. Ms Joslin’s work is very skilled indeed to give such a sense of vibrancy!