Completed Sculpture: 'This S(c)eptic Isle': 'Sentinel 5 (Better Products For A Better Future)'

All Images: 'Sentinel 5 (Better Products For A Better Future)', Salvaged Cardboard Boxes & Tube,
MDF, Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape & French Polish, 132 cm X 60 cm X 60 cm, 2018

Here’s the fifth (and as far as I currently know – the last), of my current ‘Sentinel’ sculptures.  This one’s titled, ‘Sentinel 5 (Better Products For A Better Future)’.  Of course, one should never say never.  However, my current feeling is that, if I were to continue down this particular road in coming months – the basic format might need to evolve a bit further, one way or another.  We’ll see.

This has ended up being the second tallest of the current set, and the most irregular in its formal composition.  The asymmetrical footprint was dictated, in part, by the need to add some additional stability to a relatively slender lower section - but quickly came to feel like a pleasing departure from its somewhat simpler colleagues.  The same is essentially true of the tube and narrow box additions running up the faces of that lower box - and I’m pleased to have integrated them more successfully (and less superficially) than was the case with ‘Sentinel 3’.

The main text on this ‘Sentinel’ reads, “I need a home, I need food, I need...”, but perhaps equally allusive, is the original, and more discrete [1.], printed legend, “Better Products For a Better Future”.  There would seem to be some interface between necessity and desire implied by the conjunction of these two found phrases - alongside an obvious contrast in tone.  The latter seems to feed directly into any ambivalent thoughts I may have about consumerism (of goods and/or propaganda), in connection with these ‘Sentinels’.  I’m always fascinated by the potential of such aspirational marketing tags to pretty much satirise themselves – however ambiguously.  Juxtaposing it with the more existential plaintive, "I need..." might also trigger some debate over what our society can (and can’t) actually provide – should you feel so inclined.

[1.]:  A bit too discrete to show up in these photos, in fact.  It is there - trust me.