Order of Service – Mum/Dad (redacted), 2025 

At the core of my making is a compulsion to filter and mediate a deep sense of the 'difficult majesty' of living - what plays out personally and collectively. This has fuelled processes of ordering, ritual, and the repetitive use of personally emblematic colours and motifs - particularly the cross in its various forms.

This 'book' is anchored in this and embeds re-feeling the death of my parents (2018/2019). I unstapled, 'redacted', collaged and then methodically overpainted the two  funeral Order of Service pamphlets: 16 pages each into 16 panels (mother/father alternate sides).  A transformation of the flimsy and disposable into a more enduring object, a higher salute in colour and form. Contained in a box and wrapped in a cloth, I think of birth. Unravelled and installed with box and lid separated, the 16 panels in between, I think of my parents' shared grave.   

The reading of this book is in the unwrapping and viewing once installed.

The 16 panels can also be flipped, revealing Mum/Dad.

Installed on a table or plynth; 150w x 102d x 6h cm

Double-side fabric cover, 150x110cm 

Box with lid: wood, acrylic; 72x30x6 cm

16 double-sided collages (adjusted pages from the funeral Order of Service for my mother and father); acrylic & pumice on paper on board (both sides), each 20x15cm

Box insert: acrylic and fabric on wood; 70x28cm

Box spacers - to hold the 16 panels in place: 4 small ones (then used to elevate boxes) / 2 longer ones (then used to extend the black at top and bottom of the 16 panels)

The construction and laying out of this book echoes an earlier one: Difficult Majesty 2009-2011: a collaboration with writer Andrew Lindsay. See: Cross/other media projects / difficult majesty 2009-11

Mum 1-16

Dad 1-16