Crooked House and Fairy Castles, 2025
No. 1 (framed) Resin, pigment and postcard of Southend High Street from 1905
Frame: Wood, MDF and resin
60cm x 50cm
While working with ephemeral objects such as fridge magnets, Lu became hyper-focused on how people value different objects within their homes. As an artist producing fridge magnets, they were technically artworks but not necessarily understood or treated as such.
Ideas of working-classness and taste run consistently through my practice, especially the hierarchy of good and bad taste, who defines it and who is excluded from it. These sculptures extend that line of inquiry. They originate from my early fridge magnet designs created for the commission but have been expanded into sculptural forms that move beyond their original domestic function.
The works incorporate symbols and tropes specific to Southend-on-Sea, including Prittlewell Priory’s medieval door, fish and chips signage, Never Never Land castles, the Balmoral Tower Blocks forming part of the skyline, the Curly Bridge in Leigh-on-Sea, and palm trees and ferns referencing The Shrubbery and the seafront.
Hand-sculpted in clay and cast in resin, each piece has been meticulously coloured with varying opacities, with vintage postcards and their secret letters embedded into the surfaces. Lu intended each piece to operate as a convergence of historical and contemporary references to Southend-on-Sea. The embedded postcards, sourced from historical object dealers, range from intimate love letters to simple messages home, placing the works within personal and collective memory.
These sculptures function as night lights, generating an atmosphere of magic and nostalgia that many people associate with Southend-on-Sea, particularly when recalling childhood visits to the city. In this way, the works move between domestic object, souvenir, sculptural form, and repository of local histories, while reflecting my ongoing interest in taste, value and cultural hierarchies.
The commission has been generously funded by Creative Estuary, Southend-on-Sea City Council and Art Fund.