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Messums has sought out artists that fuse together skill, traditional technique, and contemporary concepts, and with this in mind we are delighted to present Elliot Walker’s inaugural solo show at Messums London. Plenty is an irreverent look at our culture of excess, a new series of sculpture inspired by Dutch 17^th Century Vanitas paintings.

Employing almost every conceivable technique in making his glass sculptures, Walker transforms classic objects in still life paintings – goblet, bottle, apple, pear, fish, lobster – into ethereal, sculptural cameos that speak both of our bounty and also its impermanence.

Walker’s remarkable technical skills use complex and subtle colouring along with cold processes like cutting and polishing, surface decoration and texturing, to add depth and dazzling intricacies to his forms. We are left in awe of his prowess, and captivated by the visual feast he lays before us.

‘I want to elevate the mundanity of glass and the consumables of the still life to becoming everlasting, crystallised and vitrified as if they have been caught by a volcano.
I have been thinking about how idealised our idea of food has become and yet how sterilised and preserved it is.’

Elliot Walker

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