EXHIBITION GUIDE
Emotional Archaeology
Daphne Wright
30 September – 31 December 2016
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Emotional Archaeology: an extensive
exhibition of the work of artist Daphne Wright, curated
by Josephine Lanyon at Arnolfini and National Trust
Tyntesfield. We encourage you to explore and draw
connections between the works at each site.
Wright offers us ways to think about difficult, often
side-lined issues relating to class, aspiration, faith,
parenthood, aging and care. Here, in artworks that are
often simultaneously both exquisite and shocking, the
personal is always political, the mundane emerges
as surprising, and what seems benign and nonthreatening is shadowed by something darker and
more troubling.
Wright has been based in Bristol for nearly two
decades; she divides her time between the city and
Ireland. Often working from her studio at home,
her practice is influenced by the suburban and the
domestic realm, also drawing upon references from
art history, literature and film, to nonsense poetry and
country and western music.
Wright has a keen interest in the nature of materials
often involving labour-intensive processes, using fragile
or unstable materials or drawing on the skills and
knowledge of a range of professionals. For Wright, a
research process is a crucial part of her working methods.
This exhibition feels timely, revealing an artist who has
not yet received the level of exposure she deserves.
Wright’s work also has resonance in our current political
climate; at a moment when we see major political shifts
emerging from personal disaffection, the division and
isolation found in society demand our attention.
If you enjoy this free exhibition at Arnolfini, we hope
you will make a donation to support our continuing
work and public engagement.
Kate Brindley, CEO, Arnolfini
Cover image: Daphne Wright, Clay Head (2), 2014. Unfired clay
Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London
All works courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery unless
otherwise stated.
Emotional Archaeology at Arnolfini and Tyntesfield is supported by
Daphne Wright, Still Life Plant, 2014. Unfired clay
Courtesy of Frith Street Gallery, London
FOYER
Home Ornaments, 2002–5. Mixed media
Organised by ArtworksProject / CZWG Architects
Courtesy of Piers Gough
The group of domestic objects in Home Ornaments
was produced by Daphne Wright as part of a public
art project during the redevelopment of the Gorbals
housing estate in Glasgow. They were placed in each
of the newly built flats on a specially built shelf, prior to
the new residents moving in. These gifts were in some
cases kept as ornaments, or ignored and even thrown
away. Wright considered the estate as a place made up
of knowledge and narrative rather than just physical
space; and the project generated debate over taste,
meaning, value and ownership.
STAIRS
Still Life Plant, 2016. Unfired clay, wire
We bring pot plants into our homes with the best of
intentions, but this lonely, neglected object represents
the sorry state of many dusty domestic cacti and sad
spider plants. Still Life Plant is made from a material
that, until fired in a kiln, remains precarious and delicate.
GALLERY 1
Stallion, 2009. Marble dust, resin
Commissioned by Carlow County Council, Ireland
Primate, 2009. Marble dust, onyx, resin, paint and silk
embroidery
Swan, 2007. Marble dust, resin
Commissioned by Meadow Art Gallery and Frith Street
Gallery
Markers, 2009. Watercolour on paper
Lamb, 2006. Marble dust, resin
Private collection
This gallery includes a collection of sculptures, casts
made from marble dust and resin. These reference
the museum practice of acquiring reproductions of
artworks in order to complement their collections,
and the presentation is familiar from traditional and
classical sculpture, both in the display of works and in
themes explored by the artist. Swan, for example, refers
to the fallen young male which is found in the Greek
myth ‘Leda and the Swan’, as well as the 1923 WB
Yeats poem of the same title.
The dominant work in the room is Stallion, a fullsize partially-flayed death mask, which combines
the majesty of a powerful heroic animal with the
tragedy befitting a great historical figure. Upturned
and struggling at our feet, we have stumbled upon
a defeated beast that has lost a battle yet retains
its anatomical grandeur. We would normally find
sculptures such as this standing grandly on top of a
plinth, but Wright’s presentation of this fallen animal
makes us question what happened to this creature.
Primate lies as an outsider in this room. This is an
animal associated with the zoo, the jungle and the
laboratory; it doesn’t share the same art historical
references as the other sculptures. The rhesus monkey
in this work was used in animal research before being
put to sleep, and was cast by the artist after a long
process of negotiation. More than any other work, this
figure highlights the difficult and conflicted
relationship mankind has with animals. The delicate
handstitched pelt of the monkey, a collaboration with
embroiderer Janet Haigh, references the practice,
originating in Byzantine art, of making decorative
covers to protect icons.
GALLERY 2
Kitchen Table, 2014. Jesmonite
Clay Heads, 2014. Unfired clay
I Am The Beginning, 2014. Video
If You Broke Me, 2014. Video
In recent years paediatricians, psychologists and
neurologists have introduced new theories about
children and child rearing. This gallery explores the
subject of children and childhood, from both the adult
and child’s point of view.
Wright has worked with humble, unfired clay and
combined it with the naive style of Surrealism and
children’s art. In these faces, with only a gouge or
a scrape for a feature, lie all our hopes for future
generations. These forms are vulnerable, they do not
appear as fully-moulded or polished and ready for
adult life.
The artist has presented a replica of her dining table in
this gallery. Every part of the table and figures (Wright’s
two sons) has been cast in jesmonite – a material
used to make moulded objects which is often used by
taxidermists and palaeontologists. The wipe clean cloth
is reproduced with delicate hand painted lines. This
is a familiar tea time scene from the artist’s home, a
poignant moment of childhood frozen in time.
“In suburbia you will find lots of little hand-and-feet
plaster casts of babies and children in people’s houses.
I thought, instead of say, casting a hand, I’d cast an
entire portrait. You’re travelling in both directions and
in each direction something is lost. By the time you cast
an ear, the rest of the body has grown, and so on and so
forth. It’s the expression of the loss of a child: they go
on to be adults.”
Daphne Wright
Daphne Wright, Kitchen Table, 2014
Courtesy of Frith Street Gallery, London
In the two video works, roles are reversed as the
children tease, making us – the adults – the
uncomfortable and unwilling victims. In I Am The
Beginning a combination of the dark script and daubed,
face painted beard contrasts with the playful rhyme,
bringing a strangeness to the familiar. These are
feminine, domestic and familial subjects but there is
nothing sentimental about them.
GALLERY 3
Where do Broken Hearts Go?, 2000. Cacti, tin foil, glue,
resin, series of 9 intaglio plates
Courtesy of Irish Museum of Modern Art
In Where do Broken Hearts Go?, seven cacti fabricated
from strips of tin foil, sound-tracked by Country and
Western songs describing broken hearts and murder,
transport us to the Wild West. Wright carefully
considers the use of materials in her work: foil from a
distance looks precious and alluring, rather like plaster,
but up close the objects appear vulnerable, wrinkled
and patched. The sculptural forms are accompanied
by a series of nine photographic prints picturing nuns
and performances by children. These were reproduced
from Kodak colour slides found by the artist in a second
hand shop.
The striking sculptural elements and heart wrenching
soundtrack in this room are more than theatrical props.
Wright triggers an emotional intelligence in the viewer,
essential to an understanding of the issues of guilt and
love, life and loss in everyday life.
GALLERY 4
Domestic Shrubbery, 1994. Plaster, sound
In Domestic Shrubbery, the home is a site of loneliness
and isolation, which affects the construction of
personal identity and our sense of place and belonging
within society. The complex decorative form in the
work, inspired by Victorian plaster, resembles the work
of English textile designer and poet William Morris.
The artist combines a living wallpaper, incorporating
tiny shrunken hearts, in the form of a suspended floral
relief. The soundtrack, a woman imitating the call of a
cuckoo, brings the exterior landscape into the home. As
a species, the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds’ nests,
making them the outsider.
Wright often turns to traditional craft and figurative
techniques in order to explore difficult ideas.
Gerontology (the study of old age) runs throughout the
artist’s work, as Wright questions our perception of old
age as a cosy place of accumulated wisdom.
Daphne Wright, Domestic Shrubbery, 2009. Plaster, sand, spoken word
GALLERY 5
I Know What It’s Like, 2012. Video, 6 mins
Commissioned by Ham House, Trust New Art, 2012
I Know What It’s Like evokes feelings of heartache and
isolation. The artist uses soliloquy – a device whereby
a character speaks to him or herself out loud. By giving
voice to her thoughts and feelings, the subject in the
work also shares them with the onlooker.
The theatrical monologue in this haunting film reveals
unspoken inner reflections. The elderly lady on screen
begins to describe the experience of breastfeeding
her child. The emotive subject and initial use of tender
language falls away, as the tone and phrasing reveals
a lifetime of motherly guilt. Wright again examines
the subject of the family, making reference to the
ancient Greek tragedy ‘Medea’ and Macbeth by William
Shakespeare. The phonic sounds evoke both the
learning of letters taught in schools and the gradual
deterioration of language ability, for example the
repetition, digression and withdrawal associated with
Alzheimer’s disease.
E
E E
V
ENT
Curator’s Tour
FR
EVENTS AT ARNOLFINI
8 October, 2pm, meet in the foyer, free
A tour of the exhibition with curator
Josephine Lanyon.
Bring Your Baby Tour
20 October, 8 December, 11am, meet in the foyer, £3
A special gallery tour designed for parents and
carers to explore the exhibition in an environment
that welcomes babies. Led by Jane Porter.
The Draughtman’s Contract and
Artists’ Shorts
13 November, 2pm, Auditorium, £6 / £4
Hear exciting tales as storytellers amaze you,
make you giggle and provide a morning of fun
for under-5s. Booking required.
E E
ENT
15 November, 10:30am, meet in the Café Bar, free
E
V
Family Storytelling
FR
A screening of Peter Greenaway’s experimental
period drama, with a selection of artist’s short films
chosen to complement Emotional Archaeology.
Les Diaboliques
20 November, 7:30pm, Auditorium, £14 / £12.50
Get creative with engaging, fun and practical
activities for young artists and their families.
Daphne Wright and Phyllida Barlow
in conversation
3 December, 11am, Auditorium, £10 / £8
Daphne Wright discusses her work with sculptor
Phyllida Barlow, the artist selected to represent
Britain at the next Venice Biennale.
E E
ENT
26 November, free, drop in
E
V
We Are Family
FR
A rare performance by the Foremothers of Free
Improvisation. Preceded by a panel discussion at
3pm, free entry with evening ticket.
FLOOR PLAN
ARNOLFINI
16 Narrow Quay, Bristol, BS1 4QA
30 September – 31 December 2016
Open Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm. Free entry.
National Trust Tyntesfield
Wraxall, North Somerset, BS48 1NX
10 September – 20 November 2016
Open every day 11am – 5pm. Entry to the House by timed
ticket (limited numbers). National Trust members FREE.
Adults £15.50. Children (5–16 years) £7.90.
For more information about Tyntesfield head to
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/tyntesfield
Floor plan
arnolfini.org.uk | @ArnolfiniArts | #DaphneWright
About the Curator
Josephine Lanyon is a writer, producer and the
curator of Daphne Wright: Emotional Archaeology
for Arnolfini, Bristol, National Trust Tyntesfield
and Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. She was
the Director of Picture This in Bristol for ten years
until 2009, and produced new film commissions,
touring exhibitions and publications with artists
such as John Wood & Paul Harrison, Marcus Coates,
Rosalind Nashashibi, Emily Wardill and Ben Rivers
over sustained periods of time. Prior to this, Lanyon
worked at Arnolfini as a curator and Norwich Gallery
on the East Exhibitions. She continues to develop
exhibitions, art writing programmes and new film
productions with artists.
Publication
Daphne Wright: Emotional Archaeology, edited by
Josephine Lanyon, is available from Arnolfini bookshop
at a special exhibition price of £14.99. This survey
includes texts by Lanyon, Xa Sturgis, Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, Penelope Curtis, Calouste
Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, and interviews with the
artist by Brian McAvera, and Shirley MacWilliam of
Belfast School of Art. The book also includes a
pictorial catalogue of the artist’s works produced
over the past twenty-five years.
About the Artist
Daphne Wright’s sculptural languages and
conceptual tactics are quietly influential. She has
exhibited extensively in England and Ireland
since 1994.
Commissions include Ham House, Trust New Art,
Hanbury House, Worcester and Carlow County
Council, South Tipperary County Council and Cork
City Council.
Publications include: Traits of Sidney, Daphne Wright,
essays by Laura Mansfield and Shirley MacWilliam;
Daphne Wright: Home Ornaments, essays by Francis
McKee and Simon Morrisey; Profile: Daphne Wright,
essays by Penelope Curtis and Simon Morrissey;
They’ve Taken to their Beds, essays by Fiona Bradley,
Shirley MacWilliam, Mebh Ruane and Rob Stone.
Works by the artist are held in the following
collections: Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow;
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Irish Museum of
Modern Art, Dublin; Rhode Island School of Design
Museum; Towner Art Gallery, Sussex and private
collections in Ireland and the UK.
Wright (born 1963, Ireland) is represented by Frith
Street Gallery, London, and was elected as a member
of the Aosdana, Irish Association of Artists in 2011.
She lives and works in Bristol and Dublin.
Daphne Wright, Prayer Project, 2009
In the history of art the portrait, perhaps above all
others, is the genre where private and public collide
at their most intense. The colourful luminosity of the
projected portraits echo the richly decorated stainedglass. The bespoke light box is designed to celebrate
and safeguard the ecclesiastical architecture, its form
reflects a rood screen frontage, its portrait panels
made to the scale of the Christ mosaic to the right.
Moving image as a medium is seductive. Despite the
tempting digital technological advancements, Wright
chooses to work in an honest, pared-down way. There
are no complicated camera shots, edits, effects or
scores. The work plays with the rawness of time as a
material; the films are hard to look away from, but the
duration also makes them challenging to watch.
As a viewer you are granted permission to observe
but not access these faith rituals as private acts.
This depiction of a connection with the divine is
refreshing. There is an ecstasy in these films which,
stripped of religious regalia, opens hidden truths and
a door into otherworldliness quite out of step with
the modern world.
benevolence, supporting charities and welcoming
guests to the estate. William paid for at least
nineteen ecclesiastical buildings; this chapel was
commissioned in the last two years of his life
between 1873 and 1875 and designed by Arthur
Blomfield (son of a Bishop of London). William and
Blanche Gibbs were profoundly influenced by The
Oxford Movement, a group which sought to reform
the Church of England. They argued for a revival of
the ancient rituals of the early church and religious
symbolist decoration.
Daphne Wright was interested in understanding
the diversity of her religious heritage from the
Huguenots, Methodists, Church of Ireland and
Quakers. The production of this work entailed
a lengthy set of negotiations with a range of
ecumenical bodies and their leaders between 2007
and 2009. By granting permission to be filmed,
the figures are sharing their faith with us and each
other. The portraits are of Bryan Appleyard, Vice
President and Chairman of the Buddhist Society
in London; Sister Frances Dominica, filmed in the
grounds of the All Saints Convent, Oxfordshire;
Jay Lakhani, Director of Education for the Hindu
Council UK; Rabbi Francis Berry of the Bristol and
West Progressive Jewish Congregation; Prafula Shah,
a leading community representative of the Jain faith,
Vanessa Gilliland, member of Vineyard movement;
and Dr R David Muir from the Evangelical Alliance.
child saves his mother from being burnt at the
stake. Wright’s fallen creatures reproduced in white
sparkling marble dust compound refer to such
fables. They decry past folly and failures as well as
aggrandisements.
The Chapel
Prayer Project, 2009. 6 screen projection, 50 mins
Commissioned by Picture This, Bristol and
Quad, Derby
The Tyntesfield chapel is currently inhabited by the
quiet voices of conviction. Prayer Project comprises
seven portraits of the private moment of prayer
and meditation. These tranquil, often silent, films
place religions on an equal footing in their strippeddown, human form, showing faith as part of daily
life. Ritual is pictured as surprisingly ordinary yet
also extraordinary in its diversity. We are invited
to explore the notion of communion, both in the
sense of its religious connotations (a communion
with God) but also in the old sense of the word as
communication, community, or dialogue with the
self or with an ‘other’.
Experiencing the work in this setting encourages
us to look at individuals and their social
responsibility from the Victorian times to today.
William Gibbs had a deeply felt and public-spirited
Flaxley Casket. Ivory and gilt
Garden Porch
Stillborn, 2003. Chalk resin
Stillborn, The Brute, 2003. Chalk resin
One cannot help but be moved by the two stillborn
calves that lie on the floor of the former garden
porch, as if still warm, brought in for safekeeping.
For Wright, the emotional and practical difficulties
of sourcing and reproducing the dead bodies are
part of an archaeology of meaning that charges the
potency of the objects. Our own experiences of
birth and motherhood also inform our response.
Furthermore, people familiar with Tyntesfield will
recall the ghosts of prams and children’s toys that
have inhabited this space in the past.
It would be remiss to take this work at face value,
as it is richly steeped in classicism. The sculptures
stand in for the agony and ecstasy of existence,
with the animals symbolising the sacrificial. The
Gibbs would have been familiar with such visual
codes which were part of a rise in antiquarianism
and the Gothic Revival. The Northern European
Flaxley cabinet in the Tyntesfield collection tells
the story of a king and a queen and of the queen’s
evil mother-in-law. The queen gives birth to seven
children who are born with silver chains around
their necks. All but one are substituted by puppies
and later transformed into swans. The surviving
taxidermy and masculine gaming, hunting, shooting
and smoking of the Billiard Room, but it is the
contrast with civilised domesticity that presents
the challenge.
Daphne Wright grew up on a farm in Ireland,
and so is not prone to romanticisation or an
anthropomorphic approach to animals. Our role in
rearing and petting animals evokes our conflicted
emotional responses to birth, relationships and
death, as well as ‘breeding’. The Estate staff at
Tyntesfield were engaged with producing animals
from birth to dining table. Home Farm was built in
1881 as a dairy farm and recognised for its prizewinning herd of Alderney cows. Farming remained
vibrant on the estate even during its declining years.
An awareness that this was also one of the last
rooms Lord Wraxall used when he lived alone in the
house at the end of the Gibbs era, makes the work
even more poignant.
Bull’s Head by Antony Gibbs (1841-1907). Pencil on paper
The Boudoir
Death Mask, Horace, 2003. Painted plaster
Bulls - Reuben, Joe, George, Luke, 2002
Polymer intaglio prints
Horace has been laid to rest in the Boudoir (the
domain of Mrs William Gibbs) surrounded by
portraits of his family lineage. The shock in the
exquisite perfection of the deceased bull is amplified
by this very feminine environment. This room was
affectionately referred to by William as ‘Blanchey’s
boudoir’ and is decorated with a fertile frieze of
boxwood carvings of exotic fruits and flowers. The
Bull prints (each named) pay tribute to traditional
ancestral portraits, elevating the animal to that of
master. There are many family portraits in the house
that document the close-knit relationships and
intermarriage between the Gibbs and the Crawleys,
Yonges and Daubenys.
Wright has combined art history with observations
of our relationship with animals and perfected a
casting technique to produce a series of death
masks. Death masks survive from ancient Rome
and Greece. They play an important role in ancestor
cults, where masks were cast in wax from the dead.
This sculpture reproduces the corpse rather than
the living presence of the bull. We might be more
comfortable viewing these works amongst the
There are many stories of the Gibbs embracing
new ideas or inventions and being outward-looking
and accepting. In this context, the work of Daphne
Wright hints at gender and class in domestic life,
intellectual reasoning and religious belief, life cycles
and mortality. It is Wright’s ability to focus on the
individual and the intimate that makes it possible for
us to engage with some of the more intangible and
emotive aspects of life.
Josephine Lanyon, Curator of Emotional Archaeology
Cover image: Daphne Wright, Bulls - George, 2002. Polymer intaglio
print. Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London
Emotional Archaeology at National Trust Tyntesfield is supported by
Introduction
Daphne Wright’s approach to producing sculptures,
prints and films involves looking at subjects with
an intense psychological engagement, intellectual
reasoning and meticulous research. I have described
this unique approach to making art as ‘emotional
archaeology’ because it uncovers truths in the
process of reproducing our contemporary culture.
Although all the work in this exhibition has been
made since 2000, and primarily with galleries in
mind, it supports ‘Spirit of Place’ at Tyntesfield.
Firstly, because it knows its place within art history
and therefore relates to an art collection spanning
four generations of the Gibbs. Secondly, because it is
beautifully made, in collaboration with experts in the
field and sits well with the quality of craftsmanship
here. Thirdly, because Wright knows her subjectmatter intimately – prayer, family life and ‘breeding’ –
which are strong themes in the history of this estate.
Art and religion were central to the family life of
the Gibbs. This is reflected on the bookshelves of
the library and the accounts of daily life from their
staying guests. It is also visible in the Gothic Revival
architecture of the house and chapel and in their
patronage of artists and craftspeople.
Exhibition Guide
Emotional Archaeology
Daphne Wright
10 September – 20 November 2016
Tyntesfield